(Press-News.org) Toronto – Faster approval times for generic drugs will get them into consumers' hands quicker, but may not make the price any better, a pricing and marketing researcher has found.
A mathematical model created by Andrew Ching shows that fewer firms enter the marketplace because the chances of getting there first and commanding the best profits are dramatically smaller when drug approval times are shorter. Ching is an associate professor of marketing at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management.
Using the drug clonidine, Prof. Ching's model showed the number of firms in the marketplace dropped by 25 percent, from 12 to nine, under a shortened approval time scenario.
"Potentially, for the consumer, the price may not drop as much as you'd hope," said Prof. Ching.
Under the current situation it takes companies an average of more than 20 months to get U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for generic versions of established drugs. That makes approval times uncertain and companies often must go through several rounds of review. Companies also pay several million dollars when they apply for FDA approval. Given these as well as other development costs, firms making it to the marketplace last sometimes experience losses.
The FDA in recent years has talked about reducing its approval times in order to benefit consumers, and has proposed strategies for how it could do so, including spending more money in order to bring on extra staff to do the reviews.
Prof. Ching says his results, which were published in International Economic Review, suggest the FDA should think twice before going that route.
"Even if the government spends a large amount of resources to improve the efficiency of the FDA in approving generic drugs, it does not necessarily achieve the goal of enhancing welfare," Prof. Ching's paper concludes.
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The complete study is available at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1146222
For the latest thinking on business, management and economics from the Rotman School of Management, visit www.rotman.utoronto.ca/NewThinking.
The Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto is redesigning business education for the 21st century with a curriculum based on Integrative Thinking. Located in the world's most diverse city, the Rotman School fosters a new way to think that enables the design of creative business solutions. The School is currently raising $200 million to ensure Canada has the world-class business school it deserves. For more information, visit www.rotman.utoronto.ca.
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For Immediate Release – February 8, 2011 - (Toronto) – A new study from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) has found evidence suggesting that a variation of a specific gene may play a role in late-onset Alzheimer's, the disease which accounts for over 90% of Alzheimer's cases. This innovative study has combined genetics and brain imaging to determine who may be at risk for developing late-onset Alzheimer's disease long before symptoms appear.
The gene, which is called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), is crucial to maintaining healthy function of ...
Park Ridge, IL (February 8, 2011) – According to new nutrition data from the United States Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS), eggs are lower in cholesterol than previously thought. The USDA-ARS recently reviewed the nutrient composition of standard large eggs, and results show the average amount of cholesterol in one large egg is 185 mg, 14 percent lower than previously recorded. The analysis also revealed that large eggs now contain 41 IU of vitamin D, an increase of 64 percent.
"We collected a random sample of regular large shell eggs ...
University of British Columbia researchers have uncovered the unique survival mechanisms of a marine organism that may be tiny, but in some ways has surpassed sharks in its predatory efficiency.
Published today in the journal Nature Communications, the research team's portrait of the microscopic dinoflagellate Oxyrrhis marina reveals a predator so efficient that it has even acquired a gene from its prey.
NB: A microscopic photo of Oxyrrhis marina is available at http://www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/?p=17636.
"It's an interesting case of Lateral Gene Transfer, or the movement ...
Much of the devastation of stroke and head trauma is due to damage caused the overproduction of a substance in the brain called glutamate. Preventing this damage has been impossible, until now, as many drugs don't cross the so-called blood-brain barrier, and those that do often don't work as intended. But a method originally devised at the Weizmann Institute of Science may, in the future, offer a way to avert such glutamate-induced harm.
Prof. Vivian I. Teichberg of the Institute's Neurobiology Department first demonstrated a possible way around these problems in 2003. ...
Post-traumatic stress disorder can affect soldiers after combat or ordinary people who have undergone harrowing experiences. Of course, feelings of anxiety are normal and even desirable – they are part of what helps us survive in a world of real threats. But no less crucial is the return to normal – the slowing of the heartbeat and relaxation of tension – after the threat has passed. People who have a hard time "turning off" their stress response are candidates for post-traumatic stress syndrome, as well as anorexia, anxiety disorders and depression.
How does the body ...
Some of the history preserved in old tomes and newspapers may be hiding in between the lines of print. A Weizmann Institute scientist has found that the paper in such collections contains a record of atmospheric conditions at the time the trees that went into making it were growing. By analyzing the carbon isotopes in bits of paper clipped from old magazines, Prof. Dan Yakir of the Environmental Sciences and Energy Research Department in the Faculty of Chemistry has traced the rising effects of atmospheric pollution from burning fossil fuel going back to beginnings of the ...
Modern brain research generates immense quantities of data across different levels of detail, from gene activity to large-scale structure, using a wide array of methods. Each method has its own type of data and is stored in different databases. Integrating findings across levels of detail and from different databases, for example to find a link between gene expression and disease, is therefore challenging and time consuming. In addition, combining data from multiple types of brain studies provides a basis for new insights and is crucial for the progress of neuroscience ...
Babies whose mothers have HIV, but who are not HIV-infected themselves, are born with lower levels of specific proteins in their blood called antibodies, which fight infection, compared with babies not exposed to HIV, a new study has found. The finding, published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association, might explain in part why uninfected babies born to women with HIV have a higher risk of illness and death early in life.
Major programmes using antiretroviral drugs have successfully reduced the rate of mother-to-child transmission of HIV from 20-30 per ...
The big drop in the numbers of people infected with HIV in Zimbabwe is because of mass social change, driven by fear of infection, according to an international study reported today in the journal PLoS Medicine. The scientists unravelling the reasons behind this unexpected downturn now reveal what they hope are the most important lessons in the fight against the disease for the rest of Africa.
Zimbabwe's epidemic was one of the biggest in the world until the number of people infected with HIV in Zimbabwe almost halved, from 29% to 16%, between 1997 and 2007. Remarkably, ...
Many elderly Australians are either admitted to hospital suffering malnutrition, or become malnourished while in hospital, which increases hospital length of stay and health care costs.
In her lead article in the Dietitians Association of Australia's journal, Nutrition & Dietetics, Dr Karen Charlton said malnutrition often goes undiagnosed and untreated as it is not considered a clinical priority in hospitals and aged care settings.
Australian research has revealed more than one in three hospitals patients are malnourished and the rates can be as high as 70 per cent ...
