• Hye-Young Kwon, Hyungmin Kim, Brian Godman, and Michael R Reich.
• a 1 Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
• Expert Rev Pharmacoecon Outcomes Res. 2015 Jan 1; 15 (6): 1007-14.

IntroductionA new pricing policy was introduced in Korea in April 2012 with the aim of strengthening competition among off-patent drugs by eliminating price gaps between originators and generics.ObjectiveExamine the effect of newly implemented pricing policy.MethodsRetrospectively examining the effects through extracting from the National Health Insurance claims data a 30-month panel dataset (January 2011-June 2013) containing consumption data in four major therapeutic classes (antihypertensives, lipid-lowering drugs, antiulcerants and antidepressants). Proxies for market competition were examined before and after the policy.ResultsThe new pricing policy did not enhance competition among off-patent drugs. In fact, price dispersion significantly decreased as opposed to the expected change. Originator-to-generic utilization increased 6.12 times (p = 0.000) after the new policy.ConclusionsThe new pricing policy made no impact on competition among off-patent drugs. Competition in the off-patent market cannot be enhanced unless both supply and demand side measures are coordinated.

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