Online seminar – Licensing life saving drugs for developing countries: Evidence from the medicines patent pool

Alberto Galasso, Professor of Strategic Management, Rotman Chair in Life Sciences Commercialisation, University of Toronto

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.

Speaker bio

Alberto Galasso is Professor of Strategic Management at the University of Toronto, where he holds the Rotman Chair in Life Sciences Commercialisation. He is Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR). He serves as coeditor for the Journal of Economics and Management Strategy, as associate editor for the Journal of Industrial Economics and the International Journal of Industrial Organization, and as member of the editorial board for the Strategic Management Journal. His research agenda focuses on the determinants of innovative activity, the management of innovation and the functioning of markets for technology.

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Meeting ID: 880 9681 5173
Password: 130612

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