On the Effect of Parallel Trade on Manufacturers' and Retailers' Profits in the Pharmaceutical Sector
中文摘要
欧洲经济区内受管制的药品价格存在差异，由此产生了药房零售商可通过平行进口利用的套利机会。对于受专利保护的处方药，平行贸易影响着创新制药企业、零售商与平行贸易商之间的利润分配。我们构建了一个需求与供给的结构模型，其中零售商可以选择所售商品的组合，从而阻断消费者获取利润较低药品的渠道。这使零售商能够通过议价，从制造商和平行贸易商处获得更低的批发价格。借助挪威的详细交易数据，我们利用零售端药房最优商品组合决策所满足的条件，识别了一个选择集不可观测的需求模型。我们发现，零售商激励在促进平行贸易的市场渗透方面发挥着重要作用，而禁止平行进口将使制造商受益，并防止药房将制造商的产品排除在销售组合之外。最后，以挪威他汀类药物市场为例，我们表明，通过与较低报销价格相配套的定额转移支付，有可能在减少支出的同时增加原研药制造商的利润，从而缩小各国之间的价格差异。
Abstract
Differences in regulated pharmaceutical prices within the European Economic Area create arbitrage opportunities that pharmacy retailers can access through parallel imports. For prescription drugs under patent, parallel trade affects the sharing of profits among an innovating pharmaceutical company, retailers, and parallel traders. We develop a structural model of demand and supply in which retailers can choose the set of goods to sell, thus foreclosing consumers' access to less profitable drugs. This allows retailers to bargain and obtain lower wholesale prices from the manufacturer and parallel trader. With detailed transaction data from Norway, we identify a demand model with unobserved choice sets using retail‐side conditions for optimal assortment decisions of pharmacies. We find that retailer incentives play a significant role in fostering parallel trade penetration and that banning parallel imports would benefit manufacturers as well as prevent pharmacies from foreclosing the manufacturer's product. Finally, in the case of the statin market in Norway, we show that it would be possible to decrease spendingandincrease profits of the original manufacturer through lump sum transfers associated with a lower reimbursement price, thus decreasing price differentiation across countries.