The Effects of Price Regulation on Pharmaceutical R&D and Innovation

As rising health care expenditures focus government attention on slowing the growth, the pharmaceutical industry comes under increasing pressure to curb prices of ethical drugs. Pharmaceutical price regulations have been implemented in many countries to control pharmaceutical expenditures. Yet, creating innovative drugs requires enormous R&D costs, which in turn require adequate expected economic returns. Since price controls reduce profits and expected returns, as countries invoke stricter price regulations, firms will either move their R&D process into less regulated markets or move out of innovative R&D. This paper assesses the impact of drug price regulations in Japan compared to market-priced drugs in the US on pharmaceutical innovation