New Pathways for Innovation in Brazil – by Fernanda De Negri – is the result of a series of debates held in early April 2017 among Brazilian lawmakers, business leaders, researchers, and entrepreneurs in Boston and Washington at institutions such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Harvard University, and George Washington University. This was the sixth of a series of missions, organized by the Brazil Institute of the Wilson Center in partnership with the Brazilian Research-based Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (Associação da Indústria Farmacêutica de Pesquisa – Interfarma), whose main objective was to debate ways to stimulate the innovation process in Brazil with Brazilian and foreign specialists, to identify the main bottlenecks and options for overcoming them.

The first condition to improve the environment for innovation is human capital: there is no science without people. The second is infrastructure, including facilities and equipment, which allows a country’s human capital to produce S&T. The third is the economic and business environment: there must be a flexible regulatory environment, free from excessive bureaucracy and favorable to the translation of scientific knowledge to the private sector.

A better environment for innovation also requires compliance with the law and a more efficient and predictable judicial system. The so-called “rule of law” is vital to ensure predictability and thus expected returns on risky investments, such as investments in technology. Similarly, there must also be a system of intellectual property that provides guaranteed returns to the investor and that hinders neither the innovation process nor access to new technologies.

The analyzes gathered in this book become even more relevant in the face of the covid-19 pandemic by pointing out Brazil's potential for the development and production of new biopharmaceuticals.

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