IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jodeso/v37y2021i3p329-362.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Understanding the Trade-offs in Drug Development: Retrospective on Lessons from the Early Phase of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Author

Listed:
  • Debdatta Saha

    (Faculty of Economics, South Asian University, New Delhi)

  • T. M. Vasuprada

    (The Economic & Political Weekly, Mumbai)

Abstract

Using COVID-19 as the backdrop, this article investigates different trade-offs in terms of pecuniary and time costs in drug development across different branches of medicine. South Asian countries as well as China have a rich history of practicing traditional and alternative medicine. However, modern biomedicine as well as traditional medicine comes with certain procedural requirements, which make immediate responses to a pandemic difficult. Clinical trials in biomedicine are costly, mostly in terms of time. On the other hand, a lack of these standards, as in the case of many alternative medicines, does not come with the promise of low-cost cures for the viral pandemic. Any modification of the standards in pharmaceutical testing has resulted in avoidable controversies at all stages of drug discovery, be it in research papers, or in clinical trials, or in the sale of actual medicine itself. Non-pharmaceutical intervention, with different economic impacts, becomes imperative.

Suggested Citation

  • Debdatta Saha & T. M. Vasuprada, 2021. "Understanding the Trade-offs in Drug Development: Retrospective on Lessons from the Early Phase of the COVID-19 Pandemic," Journal of Developing Societies, , vol. 37(3), pages 329-362, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:jodeso:v:37:y:2021:i:3:p:329-362
    DOI: 10.1177/0169796X21996833
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0169796X21996833
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0169796X21996833?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. DiMasi, Joseph A. & Grabowski, Henry G. & Hansen, Ronald W., 2016. "Innovation in the pharmaceutical industry: New estimates of R&D costs," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 20-33.
    2. Solomon Hsiang & Daniel Allen & Sébastien Annan-Phan & Kendon Bell & Ian Bolliger & Trinetta Chong & Hannah Druckenmiller & Luna Yue Huang & Andrew Hultgren & Emma Krasovich & Peiley Lau & Jaecheol Le, 2020. "The effect of large-scale anti-contagion policies on the COVID-19 pandemic," Nature, Nature, vol. 584(7820), pages 262-267, August.
    3. Seth Flaxman & Swapnil Mishra & Axel Gandy & H. Juliette T. Unwin & Thomas A. Mellan & Helen Coupland & Charles Whittaker & Harrison Zhu & Tresnia Berah & Jeffrey W. Eaton & Mélodie Monod & Azra C. Gh, 2020. "Estimating the effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 in Europe," Nature, Nature, vol. 584(7820), pages 257-261, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Aldo Carranza & Marcel Goic & Eduardo Lara & Marcelo Olivares & Gabriel Y. Weintraub & Julio Covarrubia & Cristian Escobedo & Natalia Jara & Leonardo J. Basso, 2022. "The Social Divide of Social Distancing: Shelter-in-Place Behavior in Santiago During the Covid-19 Pandemic," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(3), pages 2016-2027, March.
    2. Pablo D. Fajgelbaum & Amit Khandelwal & Wookun Kim & Cristiano Mantovani & Edouard Schaal, 2021. "Optimal Lockdown in a Commuting Network," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 3(4), pages 503-522, December.
    3. Wang, Peipei & Liu, Haiyan & Zheng, Xinqi & Ma, Ruifang, 2023. "A new method for spatio-temporal transmission prediction of COVID-19," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    4. Pelagatti, Matteo & Maranzano, Paolo, 2021. "Assessing the effectiveness of the Italian risk-zones policy during the second wave of COVID-19," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 125(9), pages 1188-1199.
    5. Hausmann, Ricardo & Schetter, Ulrich, 2022. "Horrible trade-offs in a pandemic: Poverty, fiscal space, policy, and welfare," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    6. Kalewold Hailu Kalewold, 2023. "Lockdowns and the ethics of intergenerational compensation," Politics, Philosophy & Economics, , vol. 22(3), pages 271-289, August.
    7. William Clyde & Andreas Kakolyris & Georgios Koimisis, 2021. "A Study of the Effectiveness of Governmental Strategies for Managing Mortality from COVID-19," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 47(4), pages 487-505, October.
    8. Casoria, Fortuna & Galeotti, Fabio & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2021. "Perceived social norm and behavior quickly adjusted to legal changes during the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 54-65.
    9. Berta, P. & Bratti, M. & Fiorio, C.V. & Pisoni, E. & Verzillo, S., 2021. "Administrative border effects in Covid-19 related mortality," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 21/21, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    10. Regina Pleninger & Sina Streicher & Jan-Egbert Sturm, 2022. "Do COVID-19 containment measures work? Evidence from Switzerland," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, Springer;Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics, vol. 158(1), pages 1-24, December.
    11. Margarete Redlin, 2022. "Differences in NPI strategies against COVID-19," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 62(1), pages 1-23, December.
    12. Apel, Johannes & Rohde, Niklas & Marcus, Jan, 2023. "The effect of a nighttime curfew on the spread of COVID-19," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    13. Zhang, Junyi & Zhang, Runsen & Ding, Hongxiang & Li, Shuangjin & Liu, Rui & Ma, Shuang & Zhai, Baoxin & Kashima, Saori & Hayashi, Yoshitsugu, 2021. "Effects of transport-related COVID-19 policy measures: A case study of six developed countries," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 37-57.
    14. Wright, Austin L. & Sonin, Konstantin & Driscoll, Jesse & Wilson, Jarnickae, 2020. "Poverty and economic dislocation reduce compliance with COVID-19 shelter-in-place protocols," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 544-554.
    15. Marco Colagrossi & Claudio Deiana & Andrea Geraci & Ludovica Giua, 2022. "Hang up on stereotypes: Domestic violence and an anti‐abuse helpline campaign," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 40(4), pages 585-611, October.
    16. Emanuele Amodio & Michele Battisti & Antonio Francesco Gravina & Andrea Mario Lavezzi & Giuseppe Maggio, 2023. "School‐age vaccination, school openings and Covid‐19 diffusion," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(5), pages 1084-1100, May.
    17. Robert J. R. Elliott & Ingmar Schumacher & Cees Withagen, 2020. "Suggestions for a Covid-19 Post-Pandemic Research Agenda in Environmental Economics," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 76(4), pages 1187-1213, August.
    18. Xiao Chen & Hanwei Huang & Jiandong Ju & Ruoyan Sun & Jialiang Zhang, 2022. "Endogenous cross-region human mobility and pandemics," CEP Discussion Papers dp1860, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    19. Dosis, Anastasios & Muthoo, Abhinay, 2019. "Experimentation in Dynamic R&D Competition," CRETA Online Discussion Paper Series 52, Centre for Research in Economic Theory and its Applications CRETA.
    20. H. Peter Boswijk & Roger J. A. Laeven & Evgenii Vladimirov, 2022. "Estimating Option Pricing Models Using a Characteristic Function-Based Linear State Space Representation," Papers 2210.06217, arXiv.org.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:jodeso:v:37:y:2021:i:3:p:329-362. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.