Why are Drugs More Profitable than Vaccines?

41 Pages Posted: 14 Jul 2003 Last revised: 14 Nov 2022

See all articles by Michael Kremer

Michael Kremer

Harvard University - Department of Economics; Brookings Institution; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); Center for Global Development; Harvard University - Harvard Kennedy School (HKS)

Christopher M. Snyder

Dartmouth College - Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research

Date Written: July 2003

Abstract

In a simple representative consumer model, vaccines and drug treatments yield the same revenue for a pharmaceutical manufacturer, implying that the firm would have the same incentive to develop either ceteris paribus. We provide more realistic models in which the revenue equivalence breaks down for two reasons. First, drug treatments are sold after the firm has learned who has contracted the disease; in the case of heterogeneous consumers who vary with respect to the probability of contracting the disease, there is less asymmetric information to prevent the firm from extracting consumer surplus with drug treatments than with vaccines. We prove that, due to this aspect of pharmaceutical pricing, the ratio of drug-treatment to vaccine revenue can be arbitrarily high; we calculate that the ratio is about two to one for empirical distributions of HIV risk. The second reason for the breakdown of revenue equivalence is that vaccines are more likely to interfere with the spread of the disease than are drug treatments, thus reducing demand for the product. By embedding an economic model within a standard dynamic epidemiological model, we show that the steady-state flow of revenue is greater for drug treatments than for vaccines.

Suggested Citation

Kremer, Michael R. and Snyder, Christopher M., Why are Drugs More Profitable than Vaccines? (July 2003). NBER Working Paper No. w9833, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=423306

Michael R. Kremer (Contact Author)

Harvard University - Department of Economics ( email )

Littauer Center
Rm. 207
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

Brookings Institution

1775 Massachusetts Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20036-2188
United States

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) ( email )

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

Center for Global Development

2055 L St. NW
5th floor
Washington, DC 20036
United States

Harvard University - Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) ( email )

79 John F. Kennedy Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

Christopher M. Snyder

Dartmouth College - Department of Economics ( email )

301 Rockefeller Hall
Hanover, NH 03755
United States
(603) 646-0642 (Phone)
(603) 646-2122 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~csnyder/

National Bureau of Economic Research ( email )

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
117
Abstract Views
2,218
Rank
427,613
PlumX Metrics