Las patentes aceleran o retrasan la comercializacion de nuevos medicamentos en los paises en desarrollo?

This paper analyses the impact of patents on the dynamics of new drug introduction into different national markets. By studying a set of markets for HIV/AIDS drugs in a sample of developing countries, we find that patents only make the introduction of new drugs significantly quicker in the case of drugs that have already been in the global market for at least 1 to 4 years. Patents deter the entry of local copies into the markets of drugs launched by big multinational firms, and the lack of competition makes introductory prices to be larger and offers multinationals larger revenues in the marketing of new drugs during the patent term. However, incentives to launch new products under patents across countries appear to work with some delay.