Physicians prescribe not only based on the health outcome and costs of a drug, but also based on their personal experience and preference for certain drugs. Thus, drug manufacturers invest a significant amount of promotional efforts to influence physicians, efforts including detailing, invited conferences, and sponsored research, etc. Since a third-party payer must pay for all claims for a drug that is covered by an insurance plan, the expense for the drug may be very high and uncertain. To control increasing drug costs and sales uncertainty, price-volume agreements have been proposed as a way to reduce the risk of higher-than-expected drug expenses. In such agreements, a drug manufacturer has to return a portion to the payer of sales exceeding a pre-specified volume threshold. In this paper, we investigated the drug pricing and promotional decisions of a drug manufacturer in the presence of a price-volume agreement under three different pricing scenarios. We found it not necessarily true that a high drug price or a high quality drug (with a high health benefit) reduces the manufacturer's motivation to promote. We also found that the existence of a price-volume agreement may not increase the drug price, but it does help control the promotional effort. Although a negotiated price may be lower than the price set by the manufacturer, a negotiation may not always be preferred because the manufacturer's profit is reduced by the negotiation and thus an agreement may not be reached under certain circumstances.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
customersupport@researchsolutions.com
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Copyright © 2025 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.