[Remedy or painkiller? Concentration trends in Dutch pharmaceutical industry]

In the history of medicine and pharmacy, the managerial aspects of the pharmaceutical industry have been wrongly neglected. This article deals with processes of combination and concentration in the Dutch pharmaceutical industry in the late nineteenth and twentieth century. It suggests a typology for the analysis of these processes and goes on to describe the actual developments in The Netherlands. Then, it looks into the question which companies have been successful and what factors have been responsible for their success. It is found that in order to be successful, companies could not confine themselves to concentration. To stay in business, they had to be active in the field of research and development as well, and to bring forth innovative products.