Jeffrey Clemens, Parker Rogers
The public and political pressure on vaccine developers and global regulatory approval agencies has never been higher. The world has been eagerly awaiting any – and all – developments regarding vaccines and therapeutics required to fight the current Covid-19 pandemic. While the demand side is willing to pay almost any price for an effective and fast solution, unfortunately neither the drug development nor the drug approval process is designed to deliver speed and safety free of trade-offs.
The dilemma faced by the regulators is simple. If regulators rush their review, they may end up approving a drug without adequately understanding its efficacy and safety, leaving room for unforeseen side-effects. These include safety issues around the drug itself, along with treatment dangers such as unsafe dosages and failing to highlight potentially dangerous drug interactions. Yet if regulators endeavour to understand all possible scenarios, it may take an
Lance Lochner
Children from well-off families are healthier than poor children. The positive connection between family socioeconomic status (SES) and children’s health has been documented in a large number of studies from different countries (for an overview, see Currie 2009). The connection is not limited to childhood. The positive correlation between family resources and health continues through a child’s adult years and translates into higher mortality rates for individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds (Palme and Sandgren 2008). It may also be an important element for understanding the general education gradient in health and health inequality in a society (e.g. Currie et al. 2018, Lochner 2011, or Janke et al. 2020).
Eric Sun, Anupam Jena, Tomas Philipson , Darius Lakdawalla, Carolina Reyes, Dana Goldman
Keeping medicine accessible at a reasonable cost is a challenge. An important component of public authorities’ strategies has been to stimulate price competition from generics. Yet a perplexing feature surrounding generic entry is that the price of the other on-patent potential substitutes is barely affected (Jena et al. 2009, Lakdawalla 2018), and their volume market share even tends to increase (Grabowski et al. 2014, Lakdawalla and Philipson 2012, Castanheira et al. 2019). The absence of a price reaction on the part of drugs still benefitting from exclusivity has sometimes led competition authorities to conclude that a single molecule (and not the set of drugs that are used to treat the same condition) may constitute a distinct antitrust market. These findings stirred some controversy.
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Novel approach for minimizing investment risks and stretching limited budgets has 375 innovations targeting infectious diseases under development
NEW YORK, Jan. 28, 2021 /PRNewswire/ The public-private initiatives that contributed to COVID-19 vaccine and drug development have showcased a model for accelerating biomedical innovation. However, the effectiveness of public-private partnerships in fighting global health threats had emerged long before this pandemic hit. Over the last decade, such alliances have produced a wide assortment of life-saving technologies targeting diseases that afflict billions in low-income countries, according to a new report from a group of 12 product development partnerships (PDPs) that assesses their impact and future potential.