13 research outputs found
Driving a decade of change: HIV/AIDS, patents and access to medicines for all
Since 2000, access to antiretroviral drugs to treat HIV infection has dramatically increased to reach more than five million people in developing countries. Essential to this achievement was the dramatic reduction in antiretroviral prices, a result of global political mobilization that cleared the way for competitive production of generic versions of widely patented medicines
THE EFFECT OF DIRECT TO CONSUMER TELEVISION ADVERTISING ON THE TIMING OF TREATMENT
"We examine how direct to consumer advertising affects the delay between diagnosis and pharmacological treatment for patients suffering from a common chronic disease. The primary data for this study consist of patients diagnosed with osteoarthritis ("N" = 18,235) taken from a geographically diverse national research network of 72 primary care practices with 348 physicians in 27 states over the 1999-2002 time period. Brand-specific advertising data were collected for local and network television at the monthly level for the nearest media markets to the practices. Results of duration models of delay to treatment suggest advertising does affect the length of time that patients and physicians wait to initiate therapy. This evidence suggests that these effects may be welfare enhancing in that advertising tends to encourage more rapid adoption among patients who are good clinical candidates for the therapy and leads to less rapid adoption among some patients who are poor clinical candidates. (JEL" D12, I11")" Copyright (c) 2009 Western Economic Association International.