Pharmaceutical patent bargains: the Brazilian experience

In the backdrop of the strict patent regime flatly adopted by the World Trade Organization (WTO) for all countries, a few countries constantly challenge this system through aggressive patent bargains. Within the pharmaceutical sector, noticeably, some countries now threaten to issue or otherwise actually issue compulsory licenses that may sway large pharmaceutical companies into selling drugs with large discounts or into granting voluntary licenses domestically. That is conspicuously the negotiation strategy adopted by Brazil in its negotiations with big international pharmaceutical companies.This paper explains Brazil’s aggressive bargaining approach based on an analysis of two aspects of its political economy. The first has to do with the international context of patent bargaining in the post-WTO era. Accordingly, the existence of large and fast growing domestic markets position countries such as Brazil as strategic destinations for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and trade. Together with an absence of a propensity to innovate in pharmaceutical products, these conditions boost Brazil’s bargaining power for issuing compulsory licenses over pharmaceutical products. The second aspect is related to political economy dynamics inside Brazil. Accordingly, the political framework in Brazil undermines long-term policies and favors short-sighted ones also vis-a-vis R&D investments in the pharmaceutical industry. This remains true regardless of the strictness of the patent regime in place. The lesson of Brazil is relevant arguably for other more powerful developing countries which presently examine Brazil's approach while further challenging the WTO's strict patent policy for the future.

Should voters be afraid of hard budget constraint legislation? fiscal responsibility law in brazilian municipalities

This manuscript demonstrates that voters have nothing to be afraid of when new hard budget constraint legislation is implemented. Our claim is that this kind of legislation reduces the asymmetry of information between voters and incumbents over the budget and, as a consequence, the latter have incentives to increase the supply of public goods. As a nationwide institutional innovation, the Fiscal Responsibility Law (FRL) is exogenous to all municipalities; therefore, there is no self-selection bias in its implementation. We show that public goods expenditure increases after the FRL. Second, this increase occurs in municipalities located in the country’s poorest region. Third, our findings can be extended to the supply of public goods because the higher the expenditure with health and education, the greater the probability of incumbents being re-elected. Finally, there exists a “de facto” higher supply of public goods in education (number of per capita classrooms) after the FRL.

Brazil: the pressure points in labor legislation

Brazil’s experience shows that the economic and political history of a country is a critical determinant of which labor laws influence wages and employment, and which are not binding. Long periods of high inflation, illiteracy of the workforce, and biases in the design and enforcement of labor legislation bred by the country’s socioeconomic history are all important in determining the reach of labor laws. Defying conventional wisdom, these factors are shown to affect labor market outcomes even in the sector of employment regarded as unregulated. Following accepted practice in Brazil, we distinguish regulated from unregulated employment by determining whether or not the contract has been ratified by the Ministry of Labor, viz., groups of workers with and without signed work booklet. We then examine the degree of adherence to labor laws in the formal and informal sectors, and finds “pressure points” – viz., evidence of the law on minimum wage, work-hours, and payment timing being binding on outcomes – in both the formal and informal sectors of the Brazilian labor market. The findings of the paper imply that in terms of the design of legislation, informality in Brazil is mainly a fiscal, and not a legal phenomenon. But the manner in which these laws have been enforced is also critical determinant of informality in Brazil: poor record-keeping has strengthened the incentives to stay informal that are already built into the design of the main social security programs, and ambiguities in the design of labor legislation combined with slanted enforcement by labor courts have led to workers effectively being accorded the same labor rights whether or not they have ratified contracts. The incentives to stay informal are naturally higher for workers who are assured of protection under labor legislation regardless of the nature of their contract, which only alters their financial relationship with the government. The paper concludes that informality in Brazil will remain high as long as labor laws remain ambiguous and enforced with a clear pro-labor bias, and social security programs lack tight benefitcontribution linkages and strong enforcement mechanisms.

Does humor work in advertising of pharmaceutical products?

This thesis aims to evaluate whether humorous television commercials (TVCs) work for non-prescription drugs, known as “over-the-counter” (OTC). The construct humor in advertising is controversial since it involves complex and broad typology, and depends on the audience characteristics. Several studies within different product categories indicated that some consumer goods are better suited for humorous TVCs, while others, such as OTC drugs, may not take advantage from it. Paradoxically, drug announcers spend billions of dollars worldwide in humorous OTC ads. An experiment with real consumers was designed as between-and-within-subjects, to test three hypotheses. Sixty women were exposed to pairs of humorous and non-humorous TVCs, for each of the three drug categories (analgesics, vitamins, and laxatives). We used fictional brand names and real ads, and measured four dependant variables: attitude toward the advertising (AAD), attitude toward the brand (ABR), purchase intention (PI), and brand choice (BC), after subjects being exposed to manipulations of two independent variables: humorous vs. non-humorous TV commercials, for the drug categories. Conditional logit model confirmed that humor does not help to persuade respondents, whose choices, attitudes, and purchase intention were less favorable with humorous TVCs, in comparison to non-humorous executions. Future research is presented regarding marketing for pharmaceutical products.

Patentes como instrumento de aumento de dependência tecnológica e econômica: estudo da indústria farmacêutica

A dependência brasileira, na indústria farmacêutica/farmoquÍmica, em relação aos interesses e capitais estrangeiros é extremamente elevada e incompatível com as dimensões de mercado que o país representa e com os interesses nacionais. Por outro lado, é praticamente, nulo o trabalho de pesquisa básica no setor, aqui realizado, seja por empresas nacionais ou, principalmente, estrangeiras. Comumente,alega-se que a falta de pesquisa no setor' é decorrência do não reconhecimento de patentes de produtos e respectivos processos de produção. Este trabalho procura demonstrar que a causa básica da dependência tecnológica e, consequentemente, econômica no setor não tem relação significativa com a legislação que não reconhece tais patentes. Ao contrário, o sistema de patentes pode conduzir a um maior grau de dependência para os países em desenvolvimento. Além disto, constata-se que, apesar de o Brasil ser o principal país sob o processo de desenvolvimento dependente, no setor farmacêutico/farmacoquímico nos encontramos ainda num estágio de total dependência, sem desenvolvimento significativo, porque os capitais estrangeiros são para cá dirigidos com o fim de simplesmente explorarem o mercado local, sem o intuito de transferir "know-how" e equipar tecnologicamente a base industrial a qui existente. Tais aspectos, abordados à luz dos conceitos da Teoria Geral do Imperialismo e da Teoria do Desenvolvimento Dependente, são analisados conjuntamente com a evolução histórica do setor no Brasil e com os fatores determinantes dessa atual situação de dependência econômica e tecnológica.

Open Innovation in the pharmaceutical industry

O objetivo desse estudo é discutir a estratégia de inovação aberta adotada pelas quarto maior companhias farmacêuticas norte-americanas nos último quarto anos. A inovação tem sido reconhecida como uma fonte essencial de vantagem competitiva de uma firma. A partir do momento em que empresas começam a expandir e interagir em escala global, sua estratégia de inovação começa a mudar, e adquire um aspecto mais integrado, intensificando seu relacionamento com atores externos e recursos. Essa mudança tem como objetivo reduzir o custo da inovação e aumentar sua eficiência, e tem impacto nos resultados da empresa. Essa pesquisa realiza uma pesquisa exploratória usando dois modelos de inovação aberta como referência, Lichtenthaler (2008) e Lazzarotti-Manzini-Pellegrini (2010). Entender como firmas aplicam estratégias de inovação aberta é o primeiro passo para avaliar seu impacto na estratégia geral da mesma na nova conjuntura internacional.

Labor legislation and the size of informal sector in Brazil

This paper studies the increase in the rate of informal workers in the Brazilian economy that occurred between 1985 and 1999. We develop an overlapping generations model with incomplete markets in which agents are ex-post heterogeneous. We calibrate it to match some features of the Brazilian economy for 1985. We conduct a policy experiment which reproduces the 1988 constitution reforms that increased the retirement benefits and labor costs in the formal sector. We show that these reforms can explain the increase in informal labor. Then, we conduct a policy experiment and analyze its impact on the Brazilian economy.

Coordination in brazilian pharmaceutical supply chains

Supply chain coordination (SCC) can be a challenge for many organizations as different firms in the same chain has different expectations and interdependencies (Arshinder & Deshmukh, 2008). Lack of SCC can result in the bullwhip effect and poor performance for a firm and its partners. By investigating the phenomenon in the Brazilian pharmaceutical supply chain using a qualitative research, this paper aims to understand the main issues that avoid a better integrated chain. Results of 21 interviews suggested that the lack of coordination in this environment was influenced by the network design and the history of the sector in Brazil, as well as scarce resources