Technological Autonomy or Global Integration: Navigating Vaccine Dependency in LMICs

Vaccine hoarding during the Covid-19 pandemic exposed the urgent need for low- and middle-income countries to overcome technological dependency – not only to improve competitiveness and resilience but also to enhance global crisis response. Development scholarship has long emphasised the importance of building a distributed base of technological capabilities. But is technological capacity alone enough?

This paper examines how pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms in five middle-income countries navigated Covid-19 vaccine development and production to address both competitiveness and resilience. We asked: which firms were better positioned to achieve these goals, and why?

We identified two types of firms: technological autonomists, which developed vaccines using in-house research and development; and technology integrators, which relied on licensing and technology transfers from international partners. Although technological capabilities were essential for both, they were not sufficient to bring vaccines to market or scale production. Instead, socio-political capabilities – the ability to navigate regulatory systems, secure institutional support, build legitimacy, and forge strategic alliances – proved decisive.

However, among autonomists, even strong firm-level technological and socio-political capabilities were not enough. A comparison with the UK underscores that robust, well-coordinated state capacities were critical to sustain and scale this more independent path. Our findings highlight the importance of politically embedded innovation systems in building vaccine resilience.