I wrote about antibiotics before. So far, this was a success story. Since the 1940s, the price for antibiotic drugs fell extremely, transforming a once unaffordable drug into an “everyday product”. Unfortunately, however, there is more and more evidence that we might fall behind in the evolutionary battle against drug-resistant bacteria. Recently, I read an article in the NYT on the topic. The problem is essentially that developing new antibiotic drugs is not profitable anymore. Continue reading The Prize for New Antibiotics
Tag: Antibiotics
Economic History: Antibiotics
Some time ago I wrote about a paper of mine (Hünermund et al., 2015) in which my coauthors and me develop a model to explain the occurrence of industry shakeouts. Shakeouts are a phenomenon which we encounter frequently in new industries. At one point in time, a large number of relatively small firms, previously operating in a market, becomes unsustainable. Within a short period of time a lot of firms exit and, eventually, the industry becomes dominated by a few large players. Our model explains this frequently observed pattern by technological factors that change over the lifespan of an industry. Cost advantages — because of more efficient production technologies — allow a few firm to take over and squeeze all others out of the market. Continue reading Economic History: Antibiotics
