A comparative study between scientific publications and patents: a case of a neglected disease, Leishmaniasis

Abstract

The main objective of this research was to bring forward methods that might help and nourish health managers take decisions about neglected diseases, and more specific on Leishmaniasis. The present work is a comparative study evaluating factors presented within a research environment through the analysis of scientific publications and within the health industry through the analysis of patents and how those two areas are interconnected, if so. During the course of this research we applied methods of Data and Social Network Analysis in the search, treatment and analysis of such information and networks by evaluating the relationships between the entities, researchers, and patents along the years. Another attempt of this work was to map the interests on Leishmaniasis among the countries in the world and its dynamics on the past 13 years.