Location of Biopharmaceutical Activity.

• Position: Conferences - Conference notes

The NBER held a conference on the topic "Location of Biopharmaceutical Activity" on March 7 and 8. Iain M. Cockburn, NBER and Boston University, and Matthew J. Slaughter, NBER and Dartmouth College, organized the program. The following papers were discussed:

Ashish Arora and Chirantan Chatterjee, Carnegie Mellon University; and Lee J. Branstetter, Carnegie Mellon University and NBER, "Strong Medicine: Patent Reform and the Emergence of a Research-Driven Pharmaceutical Industry in India"

Discussant: Keith Maskus, University of Colorado

Ernst R. Berndt, MIT and NBER; Iain M. Cockburn; and Fabio Thiers, MIT, "The Globalization of Clinical Trials for New Medicines into Emerging Economies: Where Are They Going and Why?"

Discussant: James Schuttinga, National Institutes of Health

Jerry G. Thursby, Georgia Institute of Technology, and Marie C. Thursby, Georgia Institute of Technology and NBER, "Globalization of Healthcare Research: What Kind of Science is Conducted in New R&D Sites?"

Discussant: Donald Conway, Dartmouth College

Kira Fabrizio and L.G. Thomas, Emory University, "Tacit Demand and Innovation in the Global Pharmaceutical Industry"

Discussant: David Ridley, Duke University

Pierre Azoulay, MIT and NBER, and Ariel Y. Fishman, Yeshiva University, "Doctors, $$ and Drug Development: The Rise of For-Profit Experimental Medicine"

Discussant: Benjamin Jones, Northwestern University and NBER

Nick Argyres, Boston University; Elias Bruegmann, Harvard University; and Jeffrey Furman, Boston University and NBER, "Post-Merger R&D Re-Organization in the Global Pharmaceutical Industry"

Discussant: Andrea Fosfuri, University Carlos III de Madrid

Mercedes Delgado-Garcia, Harvard University; Margaret Kyle, London Business School and NBER; and Anita McGahan, University of Toronto, "The Influence of TRIPS on Global Trade in Pharmaceuticals, 1994-2005"

Discussant: Phillip McCalman, University of California, Santa Cruz

Juan Alcacer, Harvard University, and John Cantwell and Michelle Gittelman, Rutgers University, "Are Licensing Markets Local? An Analysis of the Geography of Vertical Licensing Agreements in Bio-Pharmaceuticals"

Discussant: Matthew Higgins, Georgia Institute of Technology

Pamina Koenig, University of Paris X, and Megan J. MacGarvie, Boston University and NBER, "Regulatory Policy and the Location of Bio-Pharmaceutical FDI in Europe"

Discussant: Deborah Swenson, University of California, Davis and NBER

How do private returns to inventive activity change in developing countries when IPR regimes are substantially strengthened? Arora and his co-authors investigate this question by looking at the impact of patent reforms in India on India-based pharmaceutical companies. In a fundamental policy shift, India agreed to introduce product patents for pharmaceuticals when it signed the WTO TRIPS treaty in 1995. This policy came into effect through enabling legislation in 2000...