Science AI Journal
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Research topic

Open research questions in Pharmaceutical Economics and Policy

38 unresolved questions extracted from the limitations and future-work sections of 1,005 Pharmaceutical Economics and Policy papers in our library. Each links back to the study that raised it.

What the literature leaves open

  • Introduction Dose administration aids (DAAs) support medication taking, yet little is known about how pharmacists perceive DAA benefits and challenges.

    Community Pharmacist Preferences for Providing a Dose Administration Aid Service in Australia: A Discrete Choice Experiment · 2026 · DOI

  • ABSTRACT Rationale Medication wastage is a persistent challenge in healthcare systems, yet the economic impact of syringe dead space (DS) and residual volume during routine medication administration remains underexplored outside the vaccine context.

    Unexplored Factors in Medication Wastage: Investigating Economic Impact in a Brazilian Teaching Hospital · 2026 · DOI

  • OPEN QUESTIONS AND THE FUTURE OF THE REPUBLIC The emergence of the Republic model presents society with options. In doing so, it takes some of the first steps towards filling a 30-year gap in the literature, explaining the incentives and resources that underpin the Republic and situating it within a potential shift towards a new model of translational medicine.

    THE REPUBLIC OF TRANSLATIONAL MEDICINE · 2026 · DOI

  • Future work will focus on three areas that are essential for facilitating the tool’s implementation and consistent, standardized use in routine daily practice: (i) large-scale dissemination, (ii) development of structured training programmes for pharma- cists, and (iii) integration of the tool into pharmacy infor- mation systems.

    Validation of an updated French national tool for reporting pharmacist interventions for all healthcare products · 2026 · DOI

  • Future research should explore broader green finance measures as firm-level green credit data becomes more systematically available through enhanced environmental information disclosure requirements. This points to possible policy tools for pursuing the dual goals of environmental sustainability and health equity envisioned in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), although direct evidence on health outcomes remains to be established. The mechanisms found in this study are primarily rooted in the context of China, and the cross-country generalizability the findings still needs to be validated. The research sample is limited to A-share listed pharmaceutical companies.

    Digital transformation, green finance, and pharmaceutical affordability in China: a health economics perspective · 2026 · DOI

  • In this research, only approved new drugs were captured. In other words, it should be noted that products for which approval was denied, applications for which approvals were withdrawn, and applications for which approvals were abandoned in Japan were not captured. It should be con- sidered the possibility that sponsors submit only products with high likelihood of approval in Japan. In addition, the impact of the difference in safety profiles between Japan and overseas on the approval in Japan was outside the scope of this research. Author contributions All authors contributed to the conception and design of the research, and to the analysis and interpretation of the data. All authors contributed to the critical revisions for publication. Funding None. Data Availability No datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.

    Impact of Japanese Subpopulation Data and Overall Survival in Pivotal Trials on Oncology Drug Approvals in Japan · 2026 · DOI

  • A lack of data and financial and human resources inhibits evaluation of the impact of the EML and exacerbates the influence of external actors, including which products are reviewed and how they are recommended.

    The Political Economy of the World Health Organization Model Lists of Essential Medicines · 2025 · DOI

  • CONCLUSIONS: In our scoping review of the 340B program, the highest-quality evidence indicates nonprofit, DSHs may be using the 340B program in margin-motivated ways, with inconsistent evidence for increased safety net engagement; however, this finding is not consistent across other hospital types and public health clinics, which face different incentive structures and reporting requirements.

    Assessing the Impact of the 340B Drug Pricing Program: A Scoping Review of the Empirical, Peer‐Reviewed Literature · 2024 · DOI

  • Literature with greatest internal validity leaned toward evidence of margin-motivated behavior at the external environment and covered entity levels, with inconsistent findings supporting mission-motivated behavior at these levels; this was particularly the case among participating disproportionate share hospitals (DSHs).

    Assessing the Impact of the 340B Drug Pricing Program: A Scoping Review of the Empirical, Peer‐Reviewed Literature · 2024 · DOI

  • The highest-quality evidence indicates that nonprofit, disproportionate share hospitals may be using the 340B program in margin-motivated ways, with inconsistent evidence for increased safety net engagement; however, this finding is not consistent across other hospital types and public health clinics, which face different incentive structures and reporting requirements.

    Assessing the Impact of the 340B Drug Pricing Program: A Scoping Review of the Empirical, Peer‐Reviewed Literature · 2024 · DOI

  • Policy Points Regulatory agencies may have limited evidence on the clinical benefits and harms of new drugs when deciding whether new therapeutic agents are allowed to enter the market and under which conditions, including whether approval is granted under special regulatory pathways and obligations to address knowledge gaps through postmarketing studies are imposed.

    Approval of Cancer Drugs With Uncertain Therapeutic Value: A Comparison of Regulatory Decisions in Europe and the United States · 2020 · DOI

  • Policy Points The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has in recent years allowed onto the market several drugs with limited evidence of safety and effectiveness, provided that manufacturers agree to carry out additional studies while the drugs are in clinical use.

    Pharmaceutical Drugs of Uncertain Value, Lifecycle Regulation at the US Food and Drug Administration, and Institutional Incumbency · 2019 · DOI

  • Alternative strategies for reducing ARV prices, such as streamlining financial management systems, improving demand forecasting and removing barriers to generics, should be explored.

    Global strategies to reduce the price of antiretroviral medicines: evidence from transactional databases · 2009 · DOI

  • These reforms began in the late 1980s, as acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) advocacy organizations openly criticized the FDA, noting that its policies were insufficient to address the prevalence of AIDS and the lag time for FDA approval of new AIDS treatments.

    The FDA’s Accelerated Approval Process: Does the Pharmaceutical Industry Have Adequate Incentives for Self-Regulation? · 1999 · DOI

  • Originality/value The study provides rare empirical evidence from a fragile context, contributing to limited literature on government–donor–academia cooperation and offering a transferable model for resilient, locally led and financially integrated regulatory reform.

    Government–donor–academia collaboration model in the pharmaceutical regulatory system and considerations for sustainability in low- and middle-income countries · 2026 · DOI

  • A second open question is whether the two formulations even produce comparable effectiveness, since observed differences may reflect selection on insurance, baseline characteristics, and adherence rather than the drug.

    Same Result, Different Price: Compounded versus Branded Tirzepatide · 2026 · DOI

  • Systematic facility level evidence on what medicines is actually available, at what prices, and at what cost to patients remains scarce, constraining evidence-based policy reform.

    Cancer Medicine Prices, Availability, and Affordability in Kisumu County, Kenya · 2026 · DOI

  • Although prior work has identified the structural and economic drivers of these shortages, little is known about whether pharmaceutical plants accumulate operational knowledge from their recovery efforts—tasks that are often irregular and ill-defined.

    Learning in Recovery from Disruption: Empirical Evidence from the U.S. Drug Shortages · 2026 · DOI

  • Abstract Despite recent attention to the role of competition in determining health outcomes in developed nations, little is known about how market power impedes access to quality care in lower-income countries.

    The Human Cost of Collusion: Health Effects of a Mexican Insulin Cartel · 2023 · DOI

  • In addition, many areas of the world are still lacking clearly defined regulatory processes or incentives for development of orphan medicinal products.

    OVERVIEW OF REGULATORY INITIATIVES IN THE EUROPEAN UNION TO STIMULATE RESEARCH AND ACCELERATE ACCESS TO ORPHAN DRUGS AND OTHER HIGH MEDICAL NEED PRODUCTS · 2019 · DOI

  • The degree to which advisory committees and their respective agency divisions disagree on recommendations has not been well characterized across product and action types.

    Association Between Food and Drug Administration Advisory Committee Recommendations and Agency Actions, 2008–2015 · 2019 · DOI

  • Nevertheless, despite renewed interest in the drug issue in the development cooperation sphere, alternative development remains scarce in policy discussions.

    Same script, different play: policy implications of the conceptual struggles around alternative development · 2019 · DOI

  • It is questionable, however, whether this effort is really justified, because knowledge about the expected size of these order-of-entry advantages is scarce.

    Size and dynamics of order-of-entry effects in pharmaceutical markets · 2018 · DOI

  • The article demonstrates how expert efforts to produce evidence-based policy advice were constrained by an externally induced sense of urgency, avoidance of controversy, internal disunity about drug policy orientation, limited evidence, and the institutional momentum of traditional drug control.

    Regulating New Psychoactive Substances in the Czech Republic: Policy Analysis under Urgency · 2015 · DOI

  • It is insufficient to rely only on pricing policies to reduce drug expenses, given that physicians could circumvent the policy by prescribing more expensive drugs.

    Can Price Controls Reduce Pharmaceutical Expenses? A Case Study of Antibacterial Expenditures in 12 Chinese Hospitals from 1996 to 2005 · 2013 · DOI

Most-cited papers in Pharmaceutical Economics and Policy

Most recent work

Find a gap in your own Pharmaceutical Economics and Policy sub-topic

This page shows what the Pharmaceutical Economics and Policy literature already flags as unresolved. To narrow it to your specific question, run the guided finder — it searches the gap library on demand and checks candidates against 250M+ OpenAlex works.

Open the Research Gap Finder →

Related topics in Economics, Econometrics and Finance

Labor market dynamics and wage inequality
161 open questions
Healthcare Policy and Management
115 open questions
Monetary Policy and Economic Impact
103 open questions
Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism
102 open questions
Regional Economics and Spatial Analysis
102 open questions
Healthcare Systems and Reforms
102 open questions
Financial Markets and Investment Strategies
94 open questions
Microfinance and Financial Inclusion
88 open questions
38 open questions have been extracted from the limitations and future-work passages of 1,005 Pharmaceutical Economics and Policy papers in our library. Each one below links back to the study that raised it, so you can read the original claim in context.

Tools for your next paper

Gaps & Literature SearchFind open questions in any field — 120,000+ open gaps mined from our own library.Pre-CheckIs your paper ready? A Tier 1–5 acceptance probability in seconds.Journal FinderA ranked shortlist of target journals from a 17,500-venue index.Duplicate Publication CheckerCheck prior-publication & salami-slicing risk across 8 sources.Citation GeneratorFreeA DOI or title → APA, MLA, Vancouver, Chicago, BibTeX, RIS. No signup.Graphical Abstract MakerFreeTurn your findings into a colorblind-safe graphical abstract.

Compare the category — Honest roundups of the AI research tools, ours listed alongside the alternatives.

Command palette

Jump anywhere, run any action.