Time-limited incentives

The PMPA Business Plan, regional plans and national strategies all call for time-limited incentives. Given the specific nature of the pharmaceutical industry, what is the purpose of these incentives, what are the tools available to governments and how do these vary by country context ... 

First, there is a clear distinction to be made between time-limited incentives and policies to induce structural change whether on the demand or supply side. For instance, resolving the widespread unequal tax and duty regimes applied to imports versus inputs for local production (Chapters 2-6) is a long-term structural approach that needs to be embedded. However, it is also possible to decide to adjust tax regimes for a limited period of time, to convey a temporary competitive advantage to local producers in competition with imports. 

Because states have wide discretion in TANF policy, differences across states have emerged in legal and administrative practices regarding instruments for activation. These include things like time limits, work requirements, supportive services, financial work incentives, sanctions, and transition benefits. Researchers have predicted... 

Pharmaceutical innovation has made a decisive contribution to the reduction of mortality and the improvement of quality of life. The role of patents in providing incentives for innovation has been crucial. Yet at the same time there are limitations that need to be overcome in the future. Here we will mention just two examples orphan drugs and parallel imports. Patents do not offer incentives to develop drugs for low-prevalence diseases, known as orphan drugs. Governments are sometimes faced with the option of public production, as the private sector does not invest in them. Yet these would be precisely the cases in which experiments would be conducted with new models for promoting innovation, as discussed in this chapter. 

A general conclusion is that incentives to convert conventional fossil fuel based technology into biomass based technologies are large, but implementation will be slowed down for several reasons. Firstly, there is the availability of biomass itself. The preferred feedstock should not compete with food production. Processes to convert such biomass practically into secondary energy carriers are not yet commercially available. In the mean time, technologies converting food related biomass will be implemented. But this will only occur for a limited period in the near future. 

In Europe generally, considerable variation in composition and in procedures occurs between lECs. Membership frequently depends on individuals who are willing to give their time without payment. Also, suitable members for this t)q)e of review board often have limited time. The new Clinical Trial Directive should provide the incentive for greater uniformity. A single lEC wiU give an opinion on a multicentre study within 60 days. 

The more we know about what is occurring during reaction, what the reacting materials are, and how they react, the more assurance we have for proper design. This is the incentive to find out as much as we can about the factors influencing a reaction within the limitations of time and effort set by the economic optimization of the process. 

Remediation of Poisoned Aquifers. Means for correcting polluted underground water systems are limited and costly. To the knowledgeable would-be polluter, the costs and time involved serve as incentives for preventing such damage in the first place. 

Increase accountability among the faculty. One of the barriers that we discussed was the lack of incentives for faculty members to assist with this transition any more than they do already. There are a lot of faculty members who do this very aggressively, but it is done more out of their own will and desire to help society s need for future scientists. There are limited, external faculty incentives to help with the transition. Also, there was an acknowledgment in our group discussion that professors were unlikely to change their practiced beliefs. We spent time focusing on what actions we could suggest or what actions could be taken to help influence their belief. 

The basic purpose of the patent system is to provide incentives for innovation, industrial development and industrial investment. A patent entitles its owner to exclude others from the commercial exploitation of the patented invention for a limited time. In exchange for this temporary monopoly the public receives an accurate and detailed description of the invention, which makes the knowledge available to the public at an early point of time and, after the patent has expired, enables others to exploit the invention. 

Fig. 21 (Bassett et al, 1994). Note that early applications of computer-based on-line optimization worked at the top levels of the process operations hierarchy, where decisions are made less frequently than at lower levels and, consequently, the limited speed, input/output, and storage capacity of early computers were not an impediment. The implicit assumption in this decomposition is that the aggregate of the individually optimal decisions will be close to the overall optimal decision at each point in time. Frequently, this is not the case. Therefore, there exists a strong incentive to establish a framework for the formulation and solution of optimization problems that integrate as many levels as possible above the chemical process level of the Process Operations Hierarchy (Prett and Garcia, 1988 Kantor et al, 1997).

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