OBJECTIVES To investigate the impact of adopting pharmaceutical innovations on the growth of pharmaceutical expenditures, focusing specifically on Taiwan's experience. METHODS We first provide a descriptive analysis of cost impacts of introducing new drugs into Taiwan's national formulary using data from Taiwan. We then use a statistical method to decompose the growth of pharmaceutical expend...

Background and Objectives: Pharmaceutical expenditures are responsible for a major part of health systems’ cost. According to the WHO’s statistics, Iran is the first among the 20 countries in the world in terms of drug consumption. The first step in controlling consumption of a particular good is to identify factor inducing the relevant demands. Hence, this study aimed to identify the pattern a...

OBJECTIVES Many European countries regulate the markets for prescription drugs in order to cope with rising health expenditures. On the other hand, regulation distorts incentives to invest in pharmaceutical R&D. This study aims at empirically assessing the impact of regulation on pharmaceutical R&D expenditures. METHODS We analyze a sample of 20 leading pharmaceutical companies between 2000 a...

This study demonstrates the relationship between self-reported health risk factors on a health risk appraisal and pharmaceutical expenditures for a large employer. A total of 3554 employees who were participants in a pharmacy benefit plan for the entire year of 2000 completed a health risk appraisal. As the number of self-reported health risk factors increased from zero to six or more, corporat...

In 1993 Germany implemented significant health reform legislation that, among other things, strengthened the global budgeting of physicians and instituted global budgeting of pharmaceutical expenditures. German physician expenditures are now capped at the growth in income of members of the sickness funds, in contrast to prior years, in which some growth above a targeted level was allowed. For t...

BACKGROUND The evidence on the long-term economic effects of obesity is still scarce. This study aims to analyse the impact of body mass index (BMI) and BMI-change on future pharmaceutical utilisation and expenditures. METHODS Based on data from 2,946 participants in a German population-based health survey (MONICA/KORA, 1994/95) and the follow-up study (2004/05), drug intake and expenditures ...