Vol. 33, No. 2, Fall/Winter 1995- "The Pennsylvania Geographer"

THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE

PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY

IN THE MID-ATLANTIC REGION

Yda Schreuder

Department of Geography

University of Delaware

Maryann P. Feldman

Institute for Policy Studies

Johns Hopkins University

Abstract

This paper provides an examination of the historical circumstances that gave rise to the geographic concentration of the pharmaceutical industry in the Mid-Atlantic region. We offer an interpretation of the social and institutional context that promoted the growth and development of the industry in the region. Our focus in this paper is the development of the industry in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in both the Philadelphia and New York City region. We present the metaphor "pharmaceutical compound" as a way to describe the industry embedded within the region and to emphasize the resources and relationships that enabled firms located here to survive, adapt to change, and ultimately to grow into world-class corporations.