Innovativeness of the Polish health sector: a patent analytics study
Economic Research Working Paper No. 46
Author: Dorota Szlompek
Author: Elżbieta Balcerowska
Author: Karol Gabryel
Author: Małgorzata Kozłowska
Author: Michał Gołacki
Publication year: 2018
DOI: English
The Polish health related patenting increased rapidly in the last decade making Poland the top CEE economy. Still, most of the filings remain only national, making Poland just a small share of the EU total and relatively less specialized than other EU countries. A limited number of higher education applicants accounted for 42 percent of patents and utility models, with a clear specialization in pharmaceutical technologies. Most private applicants were SMEs and individuals specialized in medtech. The innovative activity is concentrated in a few provinces and cities. Polish health related innovation is a collaborative although mostly domestic effort. Poland’s pharmaceutical specialization is on non-biological preparations (42%) and new chemical compounds (31%); while the medtech specialization is in diagnosis and surgery (34%) and prostheses, stents and orthopedic (18%).