Licensing Life-Saving Drugs for Developing Countries: Evidence from the Medicines Patent Pool / Alberto Galasso, Mark Schankerman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Galasso, Alberto.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Schankerman, Mark.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w28545.

NBER working paper series no. w28545

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2021.

Summary:

We study the effects of an institution that pools patents across geographical markets on the licensing and adoption of life-saving drugs in low- and middle-income countries. Using data on licensing and sales for HIV, hepatitis C and tuberculosis drugs, we show that there is an immediate and large increase in licensing by generic firms when a patent is included in the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP). The effect is heterogeneous across countries. The findings are robust to identification strategies to deal with endogeneity of MPP patents and countries. The impact on actual entry and sales, however, is much smaller than on licensing, which is due to geographic bundling of licenses by the MPP. More broadly, the paper highlights the potential of pools in promoting technology diffusion in developing countries.

Notes:

Print version record

March 2021.