Main description:

Incentives for innovation are particularly relevant in the pharmaceutical industry where not all social needs provide equally profitable opportunities and where most OECD countries try to implement different measures that promote research in these less profitable areas. This book describes how incentives can be provided to deal with less profitable activities when no clear markets exist for the innovations. The book discusses alternative mechanisms to substitute for inexistent markets, situations where traditional instruments have proven totally insufficient, and the clear mismatch between the size of the markets being targeted and the incentives being provided. Patents become an ineffective way to incentivise R&D when the appropriability is low; this book provides alternative ideas such as allowing for a period of data exclusivity to firms that develop new drugs.

Contents:

Introduction.- Incentives for innovation: a survey.- Incentives for innovation: neglected diseases.- When patents are not enough: supplementary incentives for pharmaceutical innovation.- The Contribution of the United States, Europe and Japan in Discovering New Drugs: 1982 2003.- The use of pay for performance for drugs: can it improve incentives for innovation?.- Drug Price Regulation: Recent Trends and Downstream Neglected Issues.