Patent Races, “Me-Too” Drugs, and Generics: A Developing-World Perspective

Alka Chadha () and Ake Blomqvist
Additional contact information
Alka Chadha: Department of Economics, National University of Singapore

Departmental Working Papers from National University of Singapore, Department of Economics

Abstract: We build a model of pharmaceutical markets in the light of a patent race among competing firms. The incentive for R&D is the patent on either the breakthrough or the me-too drug. A feature of our model that has not been analyzed before is the prevalence of insurance in developed countries as opposed to developing countries, such that the true burden of financing R&D falls to a greater extent on the former than the latter. We suggest that generics drugs be allowed in low-income countries, particularly since most of them do not have a well-established and functioning pharmaceutical industry.

New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea and nep-ino
Date: Written 2005
View list of references

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.fas.nus.edu.sg/ecs/pub/wp/wp0513.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Departmental Working Papers from National University of Singapore, Department of Economics
Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by ().