R&d Costs, Innovative Output and Firm Size in the Pharmaceutical Industry
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1995-01-01
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This study examines the relationships between firm size, R&D costs and output in the pharmaceutical industry. Project-level data from a survey of 12 US-owned pharmaceutical firms on drug development costs, development phase lengths and failure rates are used to determine estimates of the R&D cost of new drug development by firm size. Firms in the sample are grouped into three size categories, according to their pharmaceutical sales at the beginning of the study period. The D&D cost per new drug approved in the US is shown to decrease with firm size, while sales per new drug approved are shown to increase markedly with firm size. Sales distributions are highly skewed and suggest that firms need to search for blockbuster drugs with above-average returns. The results are consistent with substantial economies of scale in pharmaceutical R&D, particularly at the discovery and preclinical development phases. © 1995, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All rights reserved.
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DiMasi, Joseph A, John Vernon and Henry Grabowski (1995). R&d Costs, Innovative Output and Firm Size in the Pharmaceutical Industry. International Journal of the Economics of Business, 2(2). pp. 201–219. 10.1080/758519309 Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/6715.
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Henry G. Grabowski
Professor Grabowski specializes in the investigation of economics in the pharmaceutical industry, government regulation of business, and the economics of innovation. His specific interests within these fields include intellectual property and generic competition issues, the effects of government policy actions, and the costs and returns to pharmaceutical R&D. He has over one hundred peer reviewed articles analyzing the economics of pharmaceuticals and also several books and monograph publications. Professor Grabowski has testified several times before Congress on the issues of FDA regulation, health care reform, drug innovation and generic competition and vaccine policies. He has received numerous awards and professional recognition including a special issue of essays published in his honor in 2011 in the International Journal of the Economics of Business. He also has served as an advisor to various government and business organizations, including the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, the Office of Technology Assessment, the Federal Trade Commission, and the General Accounting Office. The US Congress has recognized the significant role that a paper he published with Duke colleagues David Ridley and Jeff Moe had in the passage of legislation that incentivized development of new therapies for neglected diseases through the creation of priority review vouchers.
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