IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jlawec/y2005v48i1p195-214.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Drug Prices and Research and Development Investment Behavior in the Pharmaceutical Industry

Author

Listed:
  • Giaccotto, Carmelo
  • Santerre, Rexford E
  • Vernon, John A

Abstract

This paper argues theoretically and shows empirically that pharmaceutical R&D spending increases with real drug prices, after holding constant other determinants of research and development (R&D). Specifically, an estimated elasticity suggests that a 10 percent increase in the growth of real drug prices is associated with nearly a 6 percent increase in the growth of R&D intensity. Simulations that are based on our multiple-regression model indicate that the capitalized value of pharmaceutical R&D spending would have been about 30 percent lower if the federal government had limited the rate of growth in drug price increases to the rate of growth in the general consumer price index during the period 1980-2001. Moreover, the results suggest that a drug price control regime would have resulted in 330--65 fewer new drugs, representing over one-third of all actual new drug launches brought to the global market during that time period.

Suggested Citation

  • Giaccotto, Carmelo & Santerre, Rexford E & Vernon, John A, 2005. "Drug Prices and Research and Development Investment Behavior in the Pharmaceutical Industry," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 48(1), pages 195-214, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jlawec:y:2005:v:48:i:1:p:195-214
    DOI: 10.1086/426882
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/426882
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/426882?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. Frank Lichtenberg, 2005. "The Impact of New Drug Launches on Longevity: Evidence from Longitudinal, Disease-Level Data from 52 Countries, 1982–2001," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 47-73, January.
    2. Ellison, Sara Fisher & Mullin, Wallace P, 2001. "Gradual Incorporation of Information: Pharmaceutical Stocks and the Evolution of President Clinton's Health Care Reform," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 44(1), pages 89-129, April.
    3. Baily, Martin Neil, 1972. "Research and Development Costs and Returns: The U. S. Pharmaceutical Industry," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 80(1), pages 70-85, Jan.-Feb..
    4. Henry G. Grabowski, 1968. "The Determinants of Industrial Research and Development: A Study of the Chemical, Drug, and Petroleum Industries," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 76(2), pages 292-292.
    5. F. M. Scherer, 1993. "Pricing, Profits, and Technological Progress in the Pharmaceutical Industry," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 7(3), pages 97-115, Summer.
    6. Lichtenberg, Frank R, 1996. "Do (More and Better) Drugs Keep People Out of Hospitals?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(2), pages 384-388, May.
    7. John A. Vernon, 2005. "Examining the link between price regulation and pharmaceutical R&D investment," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(1), pages 1-16, January.
    8. Jerry Hausman, 2003. "Sources of Bias and Solutions to Bias in the Consumer Price Index," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(1), pages 23-44, Winter.
    9. Grabowski, Henry G & Vernon, John M, 1992. "Brand Loyalty, Entry, and Price Competition in Pharmaceuticals after the 1984 Drug Act," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 35(2), pages 331-350, October.
    10. Grabowski, Henry G. & Vernon, John M., 1994. "Returns to R&D on new drug introductions in the 1980s," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 383-406.
    11. 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.
    12. Grabowski, Henry & Vernon, John, 1986. "Longer Patents for Lower Imitation Barriers: The 1984 Drug Act," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(2), pages 195-198, May.
    13. Henry Grabowski & John Vernon, 1990. "A New Look at the Returns and Risks to Pharmaceutical R&D," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 36(7), pages 804-821, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Joseph H. Golec & John A. Vernon, 2006. "European Pharmaceutical Price Regulation, Firm Profitability, and R&D Spending," NBER Working Papers 12676, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Vernon, John A. & Golec, Joseph H. & Lutter, Randall & Nardinelli, Clark, 2009. "An exploratory study of FDA new drug review times, prescription drug user fee acts, and R&D spending," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 1260-1274, November.
    4. Joseph P. Cook & Graeme Hunter & John A. Vernon, 2010. "Generic Utilization Rates, Real Pharmaceutical Prices, and Research and Development Expenditures," NBER Working Papers 15723, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. 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.
    6. Grabowski, Henry & Vernon, John & DiMasi, Joseph, 2002. "Returns on R&D for 1990s New Drug Introductions," Working Papers 02-21, Duke University, Department of Economics.
    7. Nebibe Varol & Joan Costa-i-Font & Alistair McGuire, 2011. "Explaining Early Adoption on New Medicines: Regulation, Innovation and Scale," CESifo Working Paper Series 3459, CESifo.
    8. Joseph P. Cook & Joseph Golec, 2017. "How excluding some benefits from value assessment of new drugs impacts innovation," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(12), pages 1813-1825, December.
    9. Lee, Daeyong, 2018. "Impact of the excise tax on firm R&D and performance in the medical device industry: Evidence from the Affordable Care Act," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(5), pages 854-871.
    10. Richard T. Thakor & Andrew W. Lo, 2015. "Competition and R&D Financing Decisions: Theory and Evidence from the Biopharmaceutical Industry," NBER Working Papers 20903, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Gleason, Katherine I. & Klock, Mark, 2006. "Intangible capital in the pharmaceutical and chemical industry," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 300-314, May.
    12. Joseph Dimasi & Henry Grabowski & John Vernon, 1995. "R&D Costs, Innovative Output and Firm Size in the Pharmaceutical Industry," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 2(2), pages 201-219.
    13. Nebibe Varol & Joan Costa-Font & Alistair McGuire, 2012. "Do International Launch Strategies of Pharmaceutical Corporations Respond to Changes in the Regulatory Environment?," Chapters, in: Alistair McGuire & Joan Costa-Font (ed.), The LSE Companion to Health Policy, chapter 12, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    14. John A. Vernon, 2005. "Examining the link between price regulation and pharmaceutical R&D investment," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(1), pages 1-16, January.
    15. Königbauer, Ingrid, 2006. "Dealing with Rising Health Care Costs: The Case of Pharmaceuticals," Munich Dissertations in Economics 5640, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    16. John Vernon & Joseph Golec & J. Stevens, 2010. "Comparative Effectiveness Regulations and Pharmaceutical Innovation," PharmacoEconomics, Springer, vol. 28(10), pages 877-887, October.
    17. Rexford E. Santerre & John A. Vernon, 2006. "Assessing Consumer Gains from a Drug Price Control Policy in the United States," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 73(1), pages 233-245, July.
    18. Toole, Andrew A., 2012. "The impact of public basic research on industrial innovation: Evidence from the pharmaceutical industry," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 1-12.
    19. Mahlich, Jörg C. & Yurtoglu, Burcin, 2011. "Intangibles Kapital und Rentabilität in der Pharmaindustrie," Die Unternehmung - Swiss Journal of Business Research and Practice, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 65(1), pages 32-49.
    20. Saradindu Bhaduri & Thomas Brenner, 2013. "Examining the determinants of drug launch delay in pre-TRIPS India," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 14(5), pages 761-773, October.

    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:ucp:jlawec:y:2005:v:48:i:1:p:195-214. 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: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JLE .

    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.