Pharmaceutical price differences in the EU: investigation from cardiovascular disease drugs

Abstract

Despite the market integration through the Single Market Program and European Monetary Union, and coordination efforts by the European Commission, the pharmaceutical industry in the EU has remained as separate markets in each member nation rather than integrated owing to several distinguished characteristics of the industry and member countries. As a result, there are large price differences across EU member nations. Although there are increasing harmonization efforts by the European Commission, price differences among the five major markets remain high. However, evidence from cardiovascular disease drugs shows that the average price paid for these treatments has been decreasing in recent years for five major pharmaceutical countries.

Keywords::

• EU pharmaceuticals
• parallel imports
• price differences
• price indices
• regulations

Acknowledgements

We appreciate helpful comments from participants in a seminar at the University of South Florida and a session at the 2007 Southern Economic Association meetings.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

We gratefully acknowledge financial support for the dataset from the Kenneth Oscar Johnson Endowed Professorship Fund at the Kenneth Oscar Johnson School of Business, Hodges University, and the Gaiennie Foundation at the College of Business Administration, University of South Florida. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.