Technological Autonomy or Global Integration: Navigating Vaccine Dependency in LMICs

<p dir="ltr">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?</p><p dir="ltr">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?</p><p dir="ltr">We identified two types of firms: <b>technological autonomists</b>, which developed vaccines using in-house research and development; and <b>technology integrators</b>, 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, <b>socio-political capabilities</b> – the ability to navigate regulatory systems, secure institutional support, build legitimacy, and forge strategic alliances – proved decisive.</p><p dir="ltr">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.</p>