[Strategy and resources allocation in biomedical investigation]

At the end of the present century a significant coincidence underpins the growing interest for the social legitimation of the public health systems by means of a scientific knowledge base as well as an unprecedented transformation of some research organizative features--multidisciplinarity, resource concentration and common utilisation of the support infrastructures--the paradigms and the technological domain related to genomics and molecular engineering. Under such circumstances there has been a renewed interest about strategic thinking from the perspective of biomedical science and technology. The central question addressed by this report aims to review some issues related with the economic analysis of biomedical research as a collectively provided public good and to discuss the impact of the new economics of information on creating research strategies.