IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/fhecpo/v11y2008i2n9.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Utilization of Medicines beyond Patent Expiration

Author

Listed:
  • Mansley Edward C

    (U.S. Outcomes Research, Merck & Co., Inc.)

  • Teutsch Steven M

    (U.S. Outcomes Research, Merck & Co., Inc.)

  • White Dawn M

    (Merck & Co., Inc.)

  • Busza Jamie D

    (Merck & Co., Inc.)

  • Geisel Steven S

    (Merck & Co., Inc.)

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The utilization of a medicine, both before and after patent expiration, is one of the key determinants of its long-run value to society, as consumer and producer surplus accumulate as utilization occurs. However, while utilization during the years of patent protection is followed fairly closely, usage after that is generally not, as multiple manufacturers are usually involved in the production and sale of generic alternatives. Since utilization beyond patent expiration is poorly understood, we selected a random sample of 60 drugs and assessed their long-term, post-patent use during the period of generic competition.METHODS: At five-year intervals beginning with the year generic competition began (YGCB), we estimated the U.S. utilization of each drug (including all generic and branded formulations) based on the number of prescriptions dispensed as projected by the National Prescription Audit (1964 to 2006) conducted by IMS . These estimates were then compared to each medicine's baseline utilization, defined as the drug's usage during the last full year of patent protection - one year prior to the year generic competition began (YGCB-1). The absolute utilization levels were converted into relative utilization levels, whereby a measure of 1.0 indicates that utilization in that year was equal to utilization in the baseline year.RESULTS: Many drugs continued to be prescribed long after patent protection ended. Even after excluding one medicine that had unusually high utilization 15 to 30 years after generic competition began, relative utilization averaged between 0.64 and 0.99 for the 5-year intervals starting with YGCB+5 and ending with YGCB+30. This was true even though several of the medicines were available over-the-counter (OTC) during some of those years and we did not have data reflecting OTC utilization. After excluding those OTC years (to focus on medicines that had more complete data), relative utilization averaged between 0.88 and 1.15.CONCLUSION: Many medicines continue to be used far beyond their period of patent protection, somewhat countering the view that newer drugs quickly replace older ones. This extended, post-patent utilization can yield additional surplus for society that is over and above the surplus generated during the period of patent protection.

Suggested Citation

  • Mansley Edward C & Teutsch Steven M & White Dawn M & Busza Jamie D & Geisel Steven S, 2008. "The Utilization of Medicines beyond Patent Expiration," Forum for Health Economics & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 11(2), pages 1-21, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:bpj:fhecpo:v:11:y:2008:i:2:n:9
    DOI: 10.2202/1558-9544.1121
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.2202/1558-9544.1121
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.2202/1558-9544.1121?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Darius Lakdawalla & Tomas Philipson & Y. Richard Wang, 2006. "Intellectual Property and Marketing," NBER Working Papers 12577, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Ernst R. Berndt, 2002. "Pharmaceuticals in U.S. Health Care: Determinants of Quantity and Price," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 16(4), pages 45-66, Fall.
    3. Hudson, John, 2000. "Generic take-up in the pharmaceutical market following patent expiry: A multi-country study," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 205-221, June.
    4. DiMasi, Joseph A. & Hansen, Ronald W. & Grabowski, Henry G., 2003. "The price of innovation: new estimates of drug development costs," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 151-185, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. McKellar Michael R. & Frank Matthew & Huskamp Haiden & Chernew Michael E., 2012. "The Value of Patent Expiration," Forum for Health Economics & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 15(1), pages 1-13, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Patricia M. Danzon & Eric L. Keuffel, 2014. "Regulation of the Pharmaceutical-Biotechnology Industry," NBER Chapters, in: Economic Regulation and Its Reform: What Have We Learned?, pages 407-484, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Königbauer, Ingrid, 2006. "Dealing with Rising Health Care Costs: The Case of Pharmaceuticals," Munich Dissertations in Economics 5640, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    3. Sanzenbacher, Geoffrey T. & Wettstein, Gal, 2020. "Drug insurance and the strategic behavior of drug manufacturers: Evergreening and generic entry after Medicare Part D," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    4. Magazzini Laura & Fabio Pammolli & Massimo Riccaboni, 2013. "R&D, Within and Between Patent Competition in the Pharmaceutical Industry," Working Papers 3/2013, IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, revised Jul 2013.
    5. Ernst R. Berndt & Joseph P. Newhouse, 2010. "Pricing and Reimbursement in U.S. Pharmaceutical Markets," NBER Working Papers 16297, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Patricia M. Danzon & Andrew W. Mulcahy & Adrian K. Towse, 2015. "Pharmaceutical Pricing in Emerging Markets: Effects of Income, Competition, and Procurement," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(2), pages 238-252, February.
    7. Frank Windmeijer & Eric de Laat & Rudy Douven & Esther Mot, 2006. "Pharmaceutical promotion and GP prescription behaviour," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(1), pages 5-18, January.
    8. Ghauri, Pervez N. & Rao, P.M., 2009. "Intellectual property, pharmaceutical MNEs and the developing world," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 206-215, April.
    9. Lee Branstetter & Chirantan Chatterjee & Matthew J. Higgins, 2016. "Regulation and welfare: evidence from paragraph IV generic entry in the pharmaceutical industry," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 47(4), pages 857-890, November.
    10. Stefano Capri & Rosella Levaggi, 2005. "Reconciling social and industrial goals: a bargaining model to pricing pharmaceuticals," LIUC Papers in Economics 170, Cattaneo University (LIUC).
    11. Lang, Hui-Chu & Scheffler, Richard M. & Hu, Teh-wei, 2010. "The discrepancy in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) medications diffusion: 1994-2003--A global pharmaceutical data analysis," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 97(1), pages 71-78, September.
    12. Paolo Pertile & Simona Gamba & Martin Forster, 2018. "Free-Riding in Pharmaceutical Price Regulation: Theory and Evidence," Discussion Papers 18/04, Department of Economics, University of York.
    13. Maarten Ijzerman & Lotte Steuten, 2011. "Early assessment of medical technologies to inform product development and market access," Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, Springer, vol. 9(5), pages 331-347, September.
    14. Holger Patzelt & Dean A. Shepherd, 2009. "Strategic Entrepreneurship at Universities: Academic Entrepreneurs’ Assessment of Policy Programs," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 33(1), pages 319-340, January.
    15. Patzelt, Holger & zu Knyphausen-Aufseß, Dodo & Fischer, Heiko T., 2009. "Upper echelons and portfolio strategies of venture capital firms," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 24(6), pages 558-572, November.
    16. Darius Lakdawalla & Neeraj Sood, 2007. "The Welfare Effects of Public Drug Insurance," NBER Working Papers 13501, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Dosis, Anastasios & Muthoo, Abhinay, 2019. "Experimentation in Dynamic R&D Competition," CRETA Online Discussion Paper Series 52, Centre for Research in Economic Theory and its Applications CRETA.
    18. Lorenz, Steffi, 2015. "Diversität und Verbundenheit der unternehmerischen Wissensbasis: Ein neuartiger Messansatz mit Indikatoren aus Innovationsprojekten," Discussion Papers on Strategy and Innovation 15-01, Philipps-University Marburg, Department of Technology and Innovation Management (TIM).
    19. Scherer, F.M., 2010. "Pharmaceutical Innovation," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 539-574, Elsevier.
    20. Branstetter, Lee & Chatterjee, Chirantan & Higgins, Matthew J., 2022. "Generic competition and the incentives for early-stage pharmaceutical innovation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(10).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:fhecpo:v:11:y:2008:i:2:n:9. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.