Playing the European Postal Code Lottery? : Analysis of Time to Market of new Drugs on the European Market

Abstract: This thesis seeks to investigate the vastly varying time to market of newly approved drugs across Europe. Firtsly, I use a country fixed effects model on data of newly approved drugs from 2014 to 2017 from 18 European countries. I investigate the correlations between medication specific characteristics and the launch time and find that drugs intended to treat HIV, rheumatism or hepatitis are correlated with a faster launch time. Orphan drugs, though they represent a third of the dataset are found to be insignificantly correlated with time to market. Using a drug fixed effects model, I research important country characteristics in relation to the launch time and find that countries with higher imports of medications are correlated with a quicker time to market. Countries with larger medication export sectors experience a longer waiting time, which could be linked to companies trying to hinder the parallel export of new drugs.