An issue of growing concern for health policy-makers in Europe is the continuing rise in spending on pharmaceuticals. In OECD countries pharmaceutical expenditure rose by 3.5% per year between 2000 and 2009, and averages 18-19% of total health expenditure [1]. Similar averages are seen across Europe, with pharmaceutical spending representing the largest component of ambulatory care [2]. Spendin...

We study the impact of regulation on competition between brand-names and generics and pharmaceutical expenditures using a unique policy experiment in Norway, where reference pricing (RP) replaced price cap regulation in 2003 for a sub-sample of off-patent products. First, we construct a vertical differentiation model to analyze the impact of regulation on prices and market shares of brand-names...

This article intends to consolidate the concepts of pharmaceutical market access and highlight its growing importance in emerging markets. Market access has gained considerable attention worldwide as countries try to contain their escalating healthcare expenditures amidst the global economic slowdown. This has resulted in governments adopting stricter measures for new product approval. Thus, ph...

Background and Objectives: In May 2003, the government of British Columbia adopted an income-based pharmacare program, replacing the previous age-based program. Stated policy goals included improving the distribution of pharmaceutical payments across incomes. This analysis assesses the policy’s effect on the distribution across incomes of both private payments and public subsidy for prescriptio...

Corruption can take various forms, including frank bribery and the corruption of knowledge. Prominent in the health field is corruption associated with the pharmaceutical industry. This can impair true freedom to choose optimal therapeutic strategies by misrepresenting less qualified yet more expensive (“pseudo-innovative”) products, resulting in increased expenditures without improvement in th...

Purpose: To examine the association between physical activity, prevalence of hypertension, and total healthcare and pharmaceutical expenditure in the United States of America (US). Methods: In this cross-sectional study, adult United States residents were included from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) for 2002. In the MEPS, physical activity was defined as spending at least 30 min 3 ...