IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/hecopl/v6y2011i03p369-389_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The generic drug market in Japan: will it finally take off?

Author

Listed:
  • Iizuka, Toshiaki
  • Kubo, Kensuke

Abstract

Historically, brand-name pharmaceuticals have enjoyed long periods of market exclusivity in Japan, given the limited use of generics after patent expiration. To improve the efficiency of the health-care system, however, the government has recently implemented various policies aimed at increasing generic substitution. Although this has created expectations that the Japanese generic drug market may finally take off, to date, generic usage has increased only modestly. After reviewing the incentives of key market participants to choose generics, we argue that previous government policies did not provide proper incentives for pharmacies to boost generic substitution. We offer some recommendations that may help to increase generic usage.

Suggested Citation

  • Iizuka, Toshiaki & Kubo, Kensuke, 2011. "The generic drug market in Japan: will it finally take off?," Health Economics, Policy and Law, Cambridge University Press, vol. 6(3), pages 369-389, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:hecopl:v:6:y:2011:i:03:p:369-389_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1744133110000332/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Fukushima, Kazuya & Mizuoka, Sou & Yamamoto, Shunsuke & Iizuka, Toshiaki, 2016. "Patient cost sharing and medical expenditures for the Elderly," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 115-130.
    2. Takizawa, Osamu & Urushihara, Hisashi & Tanaka, Shiro & Kawakami, Koji, 2015. "Price difference as a predictor of the selection between brand name and generic statins in Japan," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 119(5), pages 612-619.
    3. Mihajlo B, Jakovljevic & Nakazono, S & Ogura, S, 2014. "Contemporary generic market in Japan – key conditions to successful evolution," CIS Discussion paper series 613, Center for Intergenerational Studies, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:cup:hecopl:v:6:y:2011:i:03:p:369-389_00. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/hep .

    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.