Parallel Imports and Mandatory Substitution Reform - A Kick or A Muff for Price Competition in Pharmaceuticals?

David Granlund () and Miyase Yesim Köksal ()
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David Granlund: Department of Economics, Umeå University, Postal: S 901 87 Umeå, Sweden
Miyase Yesim Köksal : Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Postal: University of Gothenburg, SE-405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden

No 824, Umeå Economic Studies from Umeå University, Department of Economics

Abstract: What has been the effect of competition from parallel imports on prices of locally-sourced on-patent drugs? Did the 2002 Swedish mandatory substitution reform increase this competition? To answer these questions, we carried out difference-in-differences estimation on monthly data for a panel of all on-patent prescription drugs sold in Sweden during the 40 months from January 2001 through April 2004. On average, facing competition from parallel imports caused a 15-17% fall in price. While the reform increased the effect of competition from parallel imports, it was only by 0.9%. The reform, however, did increase the effect of therapeutic competition by 1.6%.

Keywords: parallel imports; pharmaceutical drugs; price competition; reference pricing; therapeutic competition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I11 L51 L65 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 32 pages
Date: 2011-04-13
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com, nep-hme, nep-ipr and nep-pr~
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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