We provide evidence that risk aversion leads pharmaceutical firms to underinvest in radical andnovel innovation. We do so by introducing a new measure of novelty: a drug candidate is novelif it is molecularly distinct from prior candidates. Using our measure, we show that firms face arisk-reward...

There have been many important innovations in the landscape of vaccine development for neglected and emerging infectious diseases, such as the launch of public-private product development partnerships (PDPs). However, there is still a gap in funding the development of such vaccines, especially...

Le Chili compte deux systemes de sante, l'un public et l'autre prive. Le secteur public sert plutot les familles a faible revenu (la majorite de la population), tandis que le secteur prive, en forte croissance, sert les classes moyennes et aisees. Actuellement, le gouvernement consacre des...

La legislación colombiana sobre patentabilidad de medicamentos se rige por la Decisión 344 de la Comunidad Andina de Naciones, vigente desde 1994. Por su parte, la legislación internacional para los países miembros de la Organización Mundial del Comercio (OMC) se rige por el Acuerdo sobre...

The development plans of Marxist Leninist states are usually given short shrift as expressions of ideology (at best) and propaganda (at its most pathetic). Yet there is value in considering critically these development plans, if only to get a sense of the mindset of high level functionaries with...

Background: Data on the cocaine market appear to be inconsistent, as they tend to show declining prices vis-a-vis a steady or increasing demand and a declining supply. This paper proposes an explanation for this trend by providing evidence that there is an under-estimation of the supply of...

This paper aims to investigate the effect of knowledge characteristics on the total factor productivity of firms developing drugs in the pharmaceutical industry. We decompose knowledge into knowledge associated with the technological firm portfolio and knowledge related to R&D projects, which...

Even though management consultants increasingly recommend that in-house research be outsourced, little is known about the conditions favoring substitution or complementarity between internal R&D and external technology acquisition. In this paper, we attempt to provide a deeper understanding of...

Much research has been carried out on the accumulation and effective use of knowledge as a companyspecific form of intellectual property. However, insufficient attention has been given to research focusing on the effects of micro-level knowledge absorption and its effective use. In this paper,...