Presentations

This paper studies Japanese pharmaceutical price control by using data on 39 cardiovascular pharmaceuticals in the period between 1985 and 1999. We estimate a relationship how demand is determined by official price, wholesale price, and other variables. This study finds that pharmaceuticals have fairly elastic coefficient with the wholesale price. This underscores importance of wholesale price reduction to gain demand. We find significant differences between new products and old products. For new products without generic entry, pharmaceutical firms tend to maintain official price as high as possible to achieve demand while they refrain from lowering wholesale price. For old products with generic competition, pharmaceutical firms resort to wholesale price competition. The government should distinguish old products from new products in its price control. This study also finds that product specific effects are more important than price related variables in determining pharmaceutical demand. Finally, this study finds that product specific effects have declined as products gets old up to 15 years after introduction. Then product specific effects start to increase after 15 years, which fact shows generic competition has not been fully realized in Japanese market.

This study investigates why Japanese pharmaceutical firms did not experience any large-scale M&A activities in the 1990s. By using the equation weighing the costs and effects of M&A, I analyze the possibilities of M&A of some twenty Japanese pharmaceutical firms and found that the large-scale firms in the mid-1990 could not enjoy higher efficiency in terms of “fundamental value.” Although the advantage of large-scale firms had become clear in the late 1990s, the possibility of M&A had become less due to higher stock prices of target firms. Possible combinations of the M&A are limited to several large-scale firms or efficient firms. In sum, M&A of Japanese pharmaceutical firms have been “too few” in number and “too small” in scale in the past. Most of M&A are “too late” due to high stock price. “Only a few” combinations will be available in the early 2000s.