What can Japan learn from various generic promotion programs in other developed countries?

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My primary research focus is on the 1984 Hatch-Waxman Act (HW Act) in the US and its related issues. So far, I have two written papers and one on-going paper on this subject. My first written paper is entitled “Pharmaceutical patent and generic entry competition”. In this paper, I set up a theoretical model to examine whether the act can achieve its two seemingly contradicting goals, to promote both brand-name innovation and generic competition. My second written paper is entitled “Pharmaceutical patent and reverse payment settlements”. In the US, reverse payments are made by a brand-name company to generic firms to delay generic entry. Under the HW Act, reverse payments can make a generic firm drop a patent challenge and stay out of the market until the patent expires. In the paper, I set up a theoretical model to study the effects of reverse payment under the HW Act and find that although it delays entry, it can be beneficial to the whole society at the same time. My ongoing research examines how the patent renewal system can interfere with the HW Act. To obtain the full-length patent life, a patent owner must pay a renewal fee to renew the patent every once in a while. With the HW Act, generic firms are more motivated to cut a patent short, which adds to the costs of renewing it. The theoretical setup here allows a brand-name company to choose whether to renew its patents when facing generic challenge. I expect to get some policy implications on how to set up the patent renewal fees to better serve the purposes of the HW Act.