EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Competition and Regulation Issues in the Pharmaceutical Industry

Oecd

OECD Journal: Competition Law and Policy, 2002, vol. 4, issue 3, 102-222

Abstract: The pharmaceutical sector is a dynamic, research-intensive industry that is fundamentally influenced by a web of regulations designed to a) promote research and innovation in the design and production of drugs, b) protect consumers from potentially harmful effects of drugs, and c) to control public and private expenditure on drugs. These objectives are sometimes in conflict and may require a balancing of the interests of producers and consumers. Since most consumers have some form of health insurance, their incentives to control their purchasers of pharmaceuticals or to purchase from the most efficient pharmacist are limited. Health insurers seek to control pharmaceutial expenditure through various policies such as co-payments, lists of approved drugs and maximum reimbursement levels for different drugs. If reimbursement levels for pharmacists are set at a national or regional level, incentives for entry by new pharmacists are excessive in certain locations, typically leading to restrictions on the establishment of new pharmacies. Wellthought out reform of this industry has the potential to reduce pharmaceutical expenditures while maintaining the quality of the drugs consumed.

Date: 2002
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1787/clp-v4-art10-en (text/html)
Full text available to READ online. PDF download available to OECD iLibrary subscribers.

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

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oec:dafkaa:5lmqcr2k3fjf

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in OECD Journal: Competition Law and Policy from OECD Publishing Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:oec:dafkaa:5lmqcr2k3fjf