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Discussion Papers
Innovation and Entrepreneurship Research

Generic Competition and the Incentives for Early-Stage Pharmaceutical Innovation

Branstetter, Lee; Chatterjee, Chirantan; Higgins, Matthew John (2022). Generic Competition and the Incentives for Early-Stage Pharmaceutical InnovationNBER Working Paper 20532.

What impact has rising generic competition had on the nature and direction of pharmaceutical innovation? We find broad-based, strong evidence that pharmaceutical companies have diverted their new drug development efforts away from therapeutic markets already well-served by generic drugs. We also find that increasing generic competition induces firms to shift their R&D activity towards more biologic-based products and away from chemical-based products. We conclude by discussing potential implications of our results for long-run innovation policy.

https://www.nber.org/papers/w20532

Also published in: Research Policy Volume 51, Issue 10, December 2022, 104595