Drug Innovations and Welfare Measures Computed from Market Demand: The Case of Anti-Cholesterol Drugs

The pharmaceutical industry is characterized as having substantial investment in R&D and a large number of new product introductions, which poses special problems for price measurement caused by the quality of drug products changing over time. This paper applies recent demand estimation techniques to construct a constant- quality price index for anti-cholesterol drugs. Demand is estimated using a nationally representative sample of individuals over the period 1996 to 2007 that includes detailed information on individual health conditions, demographics, insurance, and prescription drug choices. Although the average price for anti-cholesterol drugs does not change over the sample period, I .nd that the constant-quality price index drops by 22 percent, a pace more in line with our expectations in such a dynamic segment of the industry. This result is robust to a number of alternative assumptions, highlighting the importance of controlling for quality in markets with signi.cant innovation. The demand estimates also reveal that the bene.ts from new innovations depend on the health conditions of individuals which may impact quality-adjusted prices for di¤erent populations.

Does Competition Among Medicare Advantage Plans Matter?: An Empirical Analysis of the Effects of Local Competition in a Regulated Environment

The regulatory oversight of the private Medicare Advantage (MA) program makes the role of competition in this market unclear. This paper empirically examines the impact of competition by measuring the effects of changes in market structure on enrollment. The study examines competition in local geographic markets using county-level enrollment data from 2001-07. I find that an increase in the number of competitors results in an increase in the number of enrollees served ­ consistent with competition motivating firms to provide more generous benefits. Competition also results in an increase in product proliferation, which highlights a dimension of competition not previously examined. Overall, the results are similar to what one might expect in an unregulated environment, suggesting that there are benefits from competition that are not realized by regulation alone.

The Value of Coverage in the Medicare Advantage Insurance Market

This paper examines the impact of coverage on demand for health insurance in the Medicare Advantage (MA) insurance market. Estimating the e¤ects of coverage on demand poses a challenge for researchers who must must consider both the hundreds of bene.ts that a¤ect out-of-pocket costs (OOPC) to consumers, but also the endogeneity of coverage. These problems are addressed in a discrete choice demand model by employing a unique measure of OOPC that considers a consumer.s expected payments for a .xed bundle of health services and applying instrumental variable techniques to address potential endogneity bias. The results of the demand model show that OOPC have a signi.cant e¤ect on consumer surplus and that not instrumenting for OOPC results in a signi.cant underestimate of the value of coverage.

Medical Care Expenditure Indexes: A Comparison of Indexes using MarketScan and Pharmetrics Data

In recent years, healthcare service utilization has undergone several shifts, having potentially important implications for the cost of medical care.

Patents and Business Models for Software Firms

We analyze the relation between patents and the different business models available to firms in the software industry. The paper builds on Cusumano\u27s work defining the differences among firms that sell products, those that provide services, and the hybrid firms that fall between those polar categories. Combining data from five years of Software Magazine\u27s Software 500 with data about the patenting practices of those software firms, we analyze the relation between the share of revenues derived from product sales and the firm\u27s patenting practices. Accounting for size, R&D intensity, and sector-specific effects, the paper finds a robust positive correlation between product-based business models and patenting rates. We also present in this draft preliminary results suggesting that there is no significant relation between patenting practices and the extent to which the firm\u27s revenues are derived from software products and services, as opposed to hardware or other lines of business

The Role of Bloom Index of Gelatin on the Interaction with Retinal Pigment Epithelial Cells

Biocompatible materials are of considerable interest in the development of cell/drug delivery carriers for therapeutic applications. This paper investigates the effects of the Bloom index of gelatin on its interaction with retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells. Following two days of culture of ARPE-19 cells with gelatin samples G75-100, G175, and G300, the in vitro biocompatibility was determined by cell proliferation and viability assays, and glutamate uptake measurements, as well as cytokine expression analyses. The mitochondrial dehydrogenase activity in the G300 groups was significantly lower than that of G75-100 and G175 groups. The Live/Dead assays also showed that the gelatin samples G300 induced mild cytotoxicity. In comparison with the treatment of gelatins with low Bloom index, the exposure to high Bloom strength gelatins markedly reduced the glutamate uptake capacity of ARPE-19 cells. One possible explanation for these observations is that the presence of gelatin samples G300 with high viscosity in the medium may affect the nutrient availability to cultured cells. The analyses of pro-inflammatory cytokine IL-6 expression at both mRNA and protein levels showed that the gelatins with low Bloom index caused less cellular inflammatory reaction and had more acceptable biocompatibility than their high Bloom strength counterparts. These findings suggest that the Bloom index gives influence on cellular responses to gelatin materials

Ecological and Behavioural Correlates of Intracellular Buffering Capacity in the Muscles of Antarctic Fishes

Five species of antarctic fishes can be arranged in order of increasing anaerobic capacity of the white muscles for burst swimming: Rhigophila dearborni (Zoarcidae), icefish (Channichthyidae), Dissostichus mawsoni, Trematomus centronotus, and Pagothenia borchgrevinki (Nototheniidae). This order reflects in-creasing dependence on anaerobic work done during short bursts of speed during prey capture or predator avoidance. Buffer capacity (beta) for white muscle was lower than that of behaviourally equivalent fish from lower latitudes and beta is itself temperature-dependent

Search for New Particles Decaying to Dijets at CDF

We have used 106 pb^-1 of data collected with the Collider Detector at Fermilab to search for new particles decaying to dijets. We exclude at the 95% confidence level models containing the following new particles: axigluons and flavor universal colorons with mass between 200 and 980 GeV/c, excited quarks with mass between 80 and 570 GeV/c^2 and between 580 and 760 GeV/c^2, color octet technirhos with mass between 260 and 480 GeV/c^2, W' bosons with mass between 300 and 420 GeV/c^2, and E_6 diquarks with mass between 290 and 420 GeV/c^2.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figures, 1 table. Submitted to Physical Review D Rapid Communications. Postscript file of paper is also available at http://www-cdf.fnal.gov/physics/pub97/cdf3276_dijet_search_prd_rc.p