IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/hlthec/v22y2013i11p1377-1397.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Determinants Of Pricing In Pharmaceuticals: Are Us Prices Really So High?

Author

Listed:
  • Antonio Cabrales
  • Sergi Jiménez‐Martín

Abstract

This paper studies price determination in pharmaceutical markets using data for 25 countries, 6 years, and a comprehensive list of products from the MIDAS IMS database. A key finding is that the USA has prices that are not significantly higher than those of countries with similar income levels, especially those that are ‘lightly regulated’. More importantly, price differences to the US levels increase for ‘branded’, world top selling, or innovative products, and decrease, regardless of the level of regulation for mature or widely diffused molecules. Because prices for top selling molecules may be easier to perceive and recollect and more important for companies, they may bias the public discussion about international price differences. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • Antonio Cabrales & Sergi Jiménez‐Martín, 2013. "The Determinants Of Pricing In Pharmaceuticals: Are Us Prices Really So High?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(11), pages 1377-1397, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:22:y:2013:i:11:p:1377-1397
    DOI: 10.1002/hec.2887
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.2887
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/hec.2887?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
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Arbatskaya, Maria & Hviid, Morten & Shaffer, Greg, 2004. "On the Incidence and Variety of Low-Price Guarantees," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 47(1), pages 307-332, April.
    2. Juan-José Ganuza & Gerard Llobet & Beatriz Domínguez, 2009. "R& D in the Pharmaceutical Industry: A World of Small Innovations," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(4), pages 539-551, April.
    3. Scherer, F.M., 2000. "The pharmaceutical industry," Handbook of Health Economics, in: A. J. Culyer & J. P. Newhouse (ed.), Handbook of Health Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 25, pages 1297-1336, Elsevier.
    4. David M. Cutler & Ernst R. Berndt, 2001. "Medical Care Output and Productivity," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number cutl01-1.
    5. Gene M. Grossman & Edwin L.‐C. Lai, 2008. "Parallel imports and price controls," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 39(2), pages 378-402, June.
    6. Z. John Lu & William S. Comanor, 1998. "Strategic Pricing Of New Pharmaceuticals," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(1), pages 108-118, February.
    7. Charles A. Holt & David T. Scheffman, 1987. "Facilitating Practices: The Effects of Advance Notice and Best-Price Policies," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 18(2), pages 187-197, Summer.
    8. Richard G. Frank & David S. Salkever, 1997. "Generic Entry and the Pricing of Pharmaceuticals," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(1), pages 75-90, March.
    9. Patricia M. Danzon & Andrew J. Epstein, 2012. "Effects of Regulation on Drug Launch and Pricing in Interdependent Markets," Advances in Health Economics and Health Services Research, in: The Economics of Medical Technology, pages 35-71, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    10. Iain M. Cockburn & Aslam H. Anis, 2001. "Hedonic Analysis of Arthritis Drugs," NBER Chapters, in: Medical Care Output and Productivity, pages 439-462, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Danzon, Patricia M & Chao, Li-Wei, 2000. "Does Regulation Drive out Competition in Pharmaceutical Markets?," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 43(2), pages 311-357, October.
    12. Motta,Massimo, 2004. "Competition Policy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521016919, September.
    13. Ernst R. Berndt & Iain M. Cockburn & Zvi Griliches, 1996. "Pharmaceutical Innovations and Market Dynamics: Tracking Effects on Price Indexes for Antidepressant Drugs," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 27(1996 Micr), pages 133-199.
    14. Mark Duggan & Fiona M. Scott Morton, 2006. "The Distortionary Effects of Government Procurement: Evidence from Medicaid Prescription Drug Purchasing," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(1), pages 1-30.
    15. Danzon, Patricia M. & Chao, Li-Wei, 2000. "Cross-national price differences for pharmaceuticals: how large, and why?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 159-195, March.
    16. 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.
    17. Berndt, Ernst R. & Pindyck, Robert S. & Azoulay, Pierre, 1970-, 1998. "Network effects and diffusion in pharmaceutical markets : antiulcer drugs," Working papers WP 4059-98., Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
    18. Gambardella, Alfonso & Orsenigo, Luigi & Pammolli, Fabio, 2000. "Global Competitiveness in Pharmaceuticals: A European Perspective," MPRA Paper 15965, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Margaret K. Kyle, 2007. "Pharmaceutical Price Controls and Entry Strategies," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 89(1), pages 88-99, February.
    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. Herr, A. & Suppliet, M., 2011. "Co-Payment Exemptions and Reference Prices: an Empirical Study of Pharmaceutical Prices in Germany," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 11/18, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    2. Simona Gamba & Paolo Pertile & Sabine Vogler, 2020. "The impact of managed entry agreements on pharmaceutical prices," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(S1), pages 47-62, October.
    3. Gamba, S.; & Pertile, P.; & Righetti, G.;, 2022. "Spillovers of Pharmaceutical Price Regulations: evidence from the AMNOG Reform in Germany," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 22/20, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    4. Suppliet, Moritz & Herr, Annika, 2016. "Cost-Sharing and Drug Pricing Strategies : Introducing Tiered Co-Payments in Reference Price Markets," Other publications TiSEM 4d692f0e-8577-4392-b413-2, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    5. Hugo Vilares & Manuel Coutinho Pereira, 2014. "A review of the pharmaceutical market in Portugal," Economic Bulletin and Financial Stability Report Articles and Banco de Portugal Economic Studies, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
    6. 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.

    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. Antonio Cabrales & Sergi Jiménez-Martín, 2007. "The Determinants of Pricing in Pharmaceuticals: Are U.S. prices really higher than those of Canada?," Working Papers 304, Barcelona School of Economics.
    2. Sotiris Vandoros, 2014. "Therapeutic Substitution Post‐Patent Expiry: The Cases Of Ace Inhibitors And Proton Pump Inhibitors," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(5), pages 621-630, May.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. Joan Costa-i-Font & Alistair McGuire & Nebibe Varol, 2011. "Does Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Affect the Adoption of Generic Competition? Evidence from the OECD, 1999-2008," CESifo Working Paper Series 3441, CESifo.
    7. Joan-Ramon Borrell & Jayashree Watal, 2002. "Impact of Patents on Access to HIV/AIDS Drugs in Developing Countries," CID Working Papers 92, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    8. Newhouse, Joseph Paul & Berndt, Ernst R., 2010. "Pricing and Reimbursement in U.S. Pharmaceutical Markets," Scholarly Articles 4450127, Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
    9. Clark, Robert & Fabiilli, Christopher & Lasio, Laura, 2022. "Collusion in the US generic drug industry," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    10. Bergman , Mats A. & Granlund, David & Rudholm, Niklas, 2016. "Squeezing the last drop out of your suppliers: an empirical study of market-based purchasing policies for generic pharmaceuticals," Umeå Economic Studies 921, Umeå University, Department of Economics.
    11. Costa-Font, Joan & McGuire, Alistair & Varol, Nebibe, 2014. "Price regulation and relative delays in generic drug adoption," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 1-9.
    12. Bate, Roger & Jin, Ginger Zhe & Mathur, Aparna, 2011. "Does price reveal poor-quality drugs? Evidence from 17 countries," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 1150-1163.
    13. Brekke, Kurt R. & Holmas, Tor Helge & Straume, Odd Rune, 2011. "Reference pricing, competition, and pharmaceutical expenditures: Theory and evidence from a natural experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7), pages 624-638.
    14. Verniers, Isabel & Stremersch, Stefan & Croux, Christophe, 2011. "The global entry of new pharmaceuticals: A joint investigation of launch window and price," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 295-308.
    15. Ernst R. Berndt & Robert S. Pindyck & Pierre Azoulay, 2003. "Consumption Externalities and Diffusion in Pharmaceutical Markets: Antiulcer Drugs," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(2), pages 243-270, June.
    16. Arvate, Paulo Roberto & Barbosa, Klênio & Gambardella, Dante, 2013. "Generic-branded drug competition and the price for pharmaceuticals in procurement auctions," Textos para discussão 333, FGV EESP - Escola de Economia de São Paulo, Fundação Getulio Vargas (Brazil).
    17. Jie Chen & John Rizzo, 2012. "Pricing dynamics and product quality: the case of antidepressant drugs," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 42(1), pages 279-300, February.
    18. Herr, A. & Suppliet, M., 2011. "Co-Payment Exemptions and Reference Prices: an Empirical Study of Pharmaceutical Prices in Germany," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 11/18, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    19. Puig-Junoy, Jaume & López-Valcárcel, Beatriz González, 2014. "Launch prices for new pharmaceuticals in the heavily regulated and subsidized Spanish market, 1995–2007," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 116(2), pages 170-181.
    20. Javier Coronado & Sergi Jiménez-Martín & Pedro Marín, 2014. "An empirical analysis of the multimarket contact theory in pharmaceutical markets," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 15(6), pages 623-643, July.

    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:wly:hlthec:v:22:y:2013:i:11:p:1377-1397. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/5749 .

    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.