We argue that, in the pharmaceutical industry, excessive patent duration can deter investments in innovative treatments … then show that reducing current duration always breaks down market discipline, and so does an increase in duration for …

crisis has brought the optimal design of pharmaceutical patent policy to the fore. In this paper we evaluate patent policy in … the US pharmaceutical industry. We estimate the effect of patent length and scope on generic entry prior to the expiration … of new drug patents using two quasi-experimental approaches: one based on changes in patent laws and another on the …

. Illustrative is the barrier against access to essential medicines caused by pharmaceutical patent protection under the WTO regime …