Effectiveness of iNTS vaccination in sub-Saharan Africa.

Invasive non-Typhoidal Salmonella (iNTS) is one of the leading causes of blood stream infections in Sub-Saharan Africa, especially among children. iNTS can be difficult to diagnose, particularly in areas where malaria is endemic, and difficult to treat, partly because of the emergence of antibiotic resistance. We developed a mathematical model to evaluate the impact of a vaccine for iNTS in 49 countries of sub-Saharan Africa.

The Economics of Epidemic Diseases.

Epidemic, infectious, diseases affect a large number of individuals across developing as well as developed countries. With reference to some very simple diffusion models, in this paper we consider how available economic resources could be optimally allocated by health authorities to mitigate, possibly eradicate, the disease. Optimality was defined as the minimization of the long run number of infected people.

A new approach to assess drug development performance.

This article suggests that successful innovation in biopharmaceuticals is strongly related to the ability of firms to move compounds forward along the drug pipeline, relatively to other companies, within the same therapeutic area. We used this intuition to build indicators of performance at the firm-level and use them to conduct empirical analysis that relies upon a comprehensive database. We consider the effect of various factors on drug development performance, including R&D funds allocation across therapeutic areas and the proportion of biological molecules in the drug development portfolio.

R&D incentives for neglected diseases.

Neglected diseases are typically characterized as those for which adequate drug treatment is lacking, and the potential return on effort in research and development (R&D), to produce new therapies, is too small for companies to invest significant resources in the field. In recent years various incentives schemes to stimulate R&D by pharmaceutical firms have been considered. Broadly speaking, these can be classified either as 'push' or 'pull' programs.

R&D investments for neglected diseases can be sensitive to the economic goal of pharmaceutical companies.

A fundamental problem with neglected diseases is how to induce pharmaceutical companies to invest resources for developing effective treatments. A recent debate focused on the role of economic incentives represented by monetary transfers to the firms. In this article I focus on the economic goals of pharmaceutical companies, as determinants for R&D effort.

An assessment of R&D productivity in the pharmaceutical industry.

Recent reports suggest that R&D productivity in the pharmaceutical industry can be strengthened by reducing costs both in the early phase and, mostly, in the clinical phase of drug discovery. However, a cost-benefit probabilistic analysis reveals that despite high costs, the clinical phase shows healthy productivity, whereas the early phase, particularly lead optimization, exhibits very low productivity.

The economics of priority review vouchers.

Priority review vouchers (PRVs) were introduced in 2007 by the US Congress as an incentive mechanism to spur pharmaceutical firms' R&D efforts for neglected diseases (NDs). A voucher, which a firm can obtain upon approval of a new treatment for NDs, entitles the holder to prioritize the FDA review for any drug. The proposal generated much controversy regarding its ability to effectively stimulate R&D for NDs.

On the stage division mechanism in pharmaceuticals development processes.

This paper contributes to the understanding of a recent trend taking place in the pharmaceutical industry, whereby large companies develop a meaningful number of alliances with smaller firms, to share stages of drug development processes. Small firms tend to operate in earlier stages and intuitively, this may suggest that this is because they are more efficient, or more willing, than larger firms to take such early risk. In exchange, larger firms would afford the higher development costs of later phases.