• Md. Nurul AminNational Board of Revenue, Bangladesh
• Tetsushi SonobeGRIPS

While there are scores of excellent studies on failed industrial policies, studies of successful cases of industrial development are much fewer.  This paper reports a case study of the successful development of the pharmaceutical industry in Bangladesh and the critical roles played by the country’s National Drug Policy established in 1982 in boosting this development.  This paper attempts to explain how badly the markets for drugs in developing countries in general fail in providing essential drugs for the poor, what characterize the National Drug Policy as an industrial policy, how the policy addressed the market failure problem, why the policy did not cause serious government failure problems, and how successfully this industry has since been growing.