Licensing Life-Saving Drugs for Developing Countries: Evidence from the Medicines Patent Pool

Alberto Galasso and Mark Schankerman

No 28545, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We study the effects of an institution that pools patents across geographical markets on the licensing and adoption of life-saving drugs in low- and middle-income countries. Using data on licensing and sales for HIV, hepatitis C and tuberculosis drugs, we show that there is an immediate and large increase in licensing by generic firms when a patent is included in the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP). The effect is heterogeneous across countries. The findings are robust to identification strategies to deal with endogeneity of MPP patents and countries. The impact on actual entry and sales, however, is much smaller than on licensing, which is due to geographic bundling of licenses by the MPP. More broadly, the paper highlights the potential of pools in promoting technology diffusion in developing countries.

JEL-codes: I18 O31 O34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com, nep-hea, nep-ino, nep-ipr and nep-tid
Note: PR
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