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Private and Social Returns to R&D: Drug Development and Demographics

by Efraim Benmelech, Janice Eberly, Dimitris Papanikolaou, and Joshua Krieger

Research and development (R&D) by pharmaceutical firms focuses disproportionately on medical conditions afflicting the elderly. The proportion of R&D spending targeting older age groups is increasing over time. Even though these investments in R&D prolong life expectancy and improve quality of life, they have little effect on measured productivity and output growth.

What Does December's Drug-Approval Dash Mean for COVID-19 Vaccines?

by Danielle Kost

Even in the best of times, pharmaceutical regulators tend to rush through drug applications in December. Now add in a ruthless pandemic. Research and insights from Lauren Cohen. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

What Can Economics Say About Alzheimer's Disease?

by Amitabh Chandra, Courtney Coile, and Corina Mommaerts

This essay discusses the role of market frictions and "missing medicines" in drug innovation and highlights how frameworks and toolkits of economists can help our understanding of the determinants and effects of Alzheimer's disease on health.

How to Launch a New Biosciences Product: Start Small or Dive in?

C16 Biosciences wants to replace palm oil, a major contributor to deforestation, with a lab-grown substitute. But CEO Shara Ticku faces a tough decision in bringing the product to market. Jeff Bussgang discusses his case study. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

COVID's Surprising Toll on Careers of Women Scientists

by Rachel Layne

Women scientists and those with young children are paying a steep career price in the pandemic, according to new research by Karim Lakhani, Kyle Myers, and colleagues. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Merck CEO Ken Frazier Discusses a COVID Cure, Racism, and Why Leaders Need to Walk the Talk

by Staff

VIDEO: Ken Frazier, one of only four Black CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, speaks with Professor Tsedal Neeley about the search for a coronavirus vaccine, how racism at the workplace holds back America’s progress, and his own upbringing just one generation from slavery. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

In a Pandemic, What’s the Best Strategy for the Global Vaccine Alliance?

How should the vaccine alliance Gavi respond to the worldwide need for a cure for the COVID-19 pandemic? Tarun Khanna discusses his case study. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Rebates in the Pharmaceutical Industry: Evidence from Medicines Sold in Retail Pharmacies in the U.S.

by Pragya Kakani, Michael Chernew, and Amitabh Chandra

Retail pharmacy data illustrates it can be misleading to use list prices instead of net prices to understand pharmaceutical prices. Analysts and economists working in public policy should be extremely cautious in drawing policy conclusions based on list prices alone.

Pursuing Precision Medicine at Intermountain Healthcare

What happens when Intermountain Healthcare invests resources in an innovative precision medicine unit to provide life-extending, genetically targeted therapies to late-stage cancer patients? Professors Richard Hamermesh and Kathy Giusti discuss the case and its connections to their work with the Kraft Precision Medicine Accelerator. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

In a Landscape of 'Me Too' Drug Development, What Spurs Radical Innovation?

by Rachel Layne

Pharmaceutical companies are criticized for not producing more breakthrough drugs. But new research by Joshua Krieger and colleagues shows that, given a financial windfall, drug giants turn on the innovation. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

When a Competitor Abandons the Market, Should You Advance or Retreat?

by Rachel Layne

Companies pay close attention when a competitor drops out of the market, according to new research by Joshua Lev Krieger. Too often, though, they come to the wrong conclusion. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Developing Novel Drugs

by Joshua Krieger, Danielle Li, and Dimitris Papanikolaou

This paper contributes to our understanding of how financing constraints affect the direction of innovation in drug development. The authors develop a new measure of drug novelty based on molecular characteristics, and explore the tradeoffs involved in decisions to develop more novel therapies. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

A Better Business Model for Fighting Cancer

by Julia Hanna

The Kraft Precision Medicine Accelerator aims to speed up the development and delivery of cancer therapies by improving the business processes that surround them. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Do All Your Detailing Efforts Pay Off? Dynamic Panel Data Methods Revisited

by Doug J. Chung, Byungyeon Kim, and Byoung Park

Personal selling in the form of detailing to physicians is the main go-to-market practice in the pharmaceutical industry. This paper provides a practical framework to analyze the effectiveness of detailing efforts. The method and empirical insights can help firms allocate sales-force resources more efficiently and devise optimal routes and call-pattern designs.

The Impact of the Entry of Biosimilars: Evidence from Europe

by Fiona Scott Morton, Ariel Dora Stern, and Scott Stern

Biosimilars are large-molecule drugs that, while not an exact copy of already-approved large-molecule drugs, have been shown to be therapeutically equivalent. Much like generic drugs, which become available when a small-molecule drug goes off patent, biosimilars are lower in cost than their reference products and present an opportunity for savings when large-molecule drugs’ patents expire. Biosimilars have been available in the United States only since 2015 but have been regulated, approved, and sold in Europe for over a decade. This paper examines the European experience to help inform policy design and institutional choices for the United States. Topics covered include the entry of distributors and unique products; predictors of average product prices following biosimilar competition; and penetration of biosimilars as a share of total sales.

Public R&D Investments and Private-sector Patenting: Evidence from NIH Funding Rules

by Danielle Li

By tracing the often-circuitous path from National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding to patented innovations, this research examines the effects of public science on private sector innovation in the life sciences.

Reform Tax Law to Keep US Firms at Home

by Mihir Desai

The flood of US corporations relocating to other countries is a hot topic in Congress. In recent testimony before the Senate Committee on Finance, Mihir Desai provided possible solutions around rethinking corporate tax and regulatory policy. Open for comment; 3 Comment(s) posted.

Entrepreneurship and Multinationals Drive Globalization

by Sean Silverthorne

Why is the firm overlooked as a contributor when we identify the drivers of globalization? Geoffrey Jones discusses his new book, Entrepreneurship and Multinationals: Global Business and the Making of the Modern World. Open for comment; 1 Comment(s) posted.

US Healthcare Reform and the Pharmaceutical Industry

by Arthur Daemmrich

The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) will restructure the US health care market in the coming years. For the pharmaceutical industry, the ACA is likely to prove a mixed blessing. In this paper, Assistant Professor Arthur Daemmrich analyzes the political economy of health care, specifically concerning health care reform. He then considers how the ACA will affect the pharmaceutical sector, both quantitatively in terms of the size of the prescription drug market and qualitatively in terms of industry structure and competitive dynamics. Daemmrich also places the current reforms into historical context and describes the political negotiations that enabled passage of the ACA. Key concepts include: Since the United States is the world's largest prescription drug market and has among the fewest price control mechanisms, the ACA holds significance to pharmaceutical firms internationally. Over the course of its implementation in coming years, the ACA will significantly expand prescription drug use, including at the relative expense of other health services. In 2015, Daemmrich projects pharmaceutical spending between $435 and $440 billion (12.5 percent of total health care spending) and in 2020 it will near $700 billion (14 percent of total health care spending). Congress and the Department of Health and Human Services will be hard pressed to explain increased drug spending to consumers, especially compared to Europe and Japan where reference pricing (capping prices at an average within a therapeutic category or among peer countries) has become the norm. The ACA nevertheless holds the potential for the United States to be the first country to break out of the silo framework that dominates health budgeting in countries using reference price systems and to instead set budgets at the disease (or patient) level, linked to health outcomes. Closed for comment; 0 Comment(s) posted.

Funding Unpredictability Around Stem-Cell Research Inflicts Heavy Cost on Scientific Progress

by William Sahlman

Funding unpredictability in human embryonic stem-cell research inflicts a heavy cost on all scientific progress, says professor William Sahlman. Open for comment; 6 Comment(s) posted.