We examine the role of spillover learning in shaping the value of exploratory versus incremental R&D. Using data from drug development, we show that novel drug candidates generate more knowledge spillovers than incremental ones. Despite being less likely to reach regulatory approval, they are...

The Covid-19 pandemic tragically emphasized severe failures of health systems. In particular, the saturation of hospital infrastructures and the lack of medical devices is crucial for respiratory ventilators. The medical and pharmaceutical sectors had to find urgently new ways to innovate...

The patent laws of many countries have ''research exemption'' provisions that exempt certain research-related uses of proprietary materials from patent infringement. By limiting the rights of existing patent holders, such rules are meant to facilitate follow-on innovation and benefit latecomer...

Pharmaceutical firms typically enjoy market exclusivity for new drugs from concurrent protection of the underlying invention (through patents) and the clinical trials data submitted for market approval (through data exclusivity). Patent invalidation during drug development renders data...

Drug recalls, contamination events, and shortages are on the rise, but drug companies still rely on decades-old manufacturing plants and processes. Contrary to widespread perceptions, drug manufacturing is typically expensive, inefficient, and non-innovative. Drug companies spend much more on...

This paper analyzes M&A patterns of R&D projects in the antidiabetics industry. For this purpose, we construct a database with all corporate individual antidiabetics R&D projects over the period 1997 - 2017, and add detailed information on firms' technology dimension using patent information,...

Our study puts special attention to the fact that R&D cooperations in the pharmaceutical industry are formed at different stages throughout the drug development process. We study if the timing to engage in R&D cooperations in the pharmaceutical industry has different impacts on the technology...

The debate on whether COVID-19 vaccine patents are slowing down the pace of vaccination and the recovery from the 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...

Longitudinal, disease-level data are used to analyze the impact of pharmaceutical innovation on longevity (mean age at death), hospital utilization, and medical expenditure in Greece during the period 1995 - 2010. The estimates indicate that pharmaceutical innovation increased mean age at death...