Talk at BMGF-India on research on health and innovation in India.

1. Towards Healthy Billions
Brown Bag – Gates Foundation – India
Chirantan Chatterjee | March 8 2018
Indian School of Business

2. Just a little Bit About Myself
• 2011 PhD in applied economics and public policy from Carnegie Mellon
• Prior experience (2003-2005) as a journalist (Economic Times) after engineering and
management degrees from IITR (1997-2001) and IIMC (2001-2003).
• Former faculty member at IIM Bangalore (2011-2017), now at Indian School of
Business (Economics and Public Policy faculty)
• Research Funding: NSF, Sloan Foundation, IIM Bangalore and ISB Institutional Grants,
World Bank South Asia, Pfizer and Qualcomm.
• Applied Microeconomist Interested in Global Healthcare Markets
• Main Focus India and US but I go where data and causal analysis takes me.
• Dynamic Efficiencies And Welfare Considerations Make me Pause and Ponder.
• Tradeoffs are a part and parcel of my research questions and policy recommendations.
• Solving Access today without destroying Innovation Incentives for Tomorrow.
• Interdisciplinary thinking [won’t mind engaging and learning from sociologists, firm managers,
social and economic historians, demographers, ethnographers, epidemiologists and public
health specialists, behavioralists, clinicians etc.]

3. Quick Summary of My Past Research 1/3
Paper Snapshot of Findings Unfinished Agenda Position in the A-I
Continuum
1. Arora, A., Branstetter, L., & Chatterjee, C.
(2008, March). Strong medicine: patent reform
and the emergence of a research-driven
pharmaceutical industry in India. In NBER
Conference on Location of Biopharmaceutical
Activity, Boston, MA (pp. 7-8).
Stronger IPR in India created Incentives for
Process Innovation for Technological
Leader Firms
- Why Process Innovation?
- Lobbying in Implementing
TRIPs in India?
- Role of exports in US?
- Strong Medicine or Bad
Medicine (the quality debate)
Bit of I
Bit of A
2. Branstetter, L., Chatterjee, C., & Higgins, M.
J. (2016). Regulation and welfare: evidence
from paragraph IV generic entry in the
pharmaceutical industry. The RAND Journal of
Economics, 47(4), 857-890.
Estimation of Demand in Hypertension
Markets in US with Accelerated Generic
Entry Due to Hatch Waxman Act. Large
Short Run Welfare Gains.
- The India Hook
- Para4 is a novel policy
innovation in US – an
unintended outcome is out of
court settlements, not studied
enough.
- Across therapeutic markets
- Jurisprudence and its role
More of A than I
3. Chatterjee, C., Kubo, K., & Pingali, V. (2015).
The consumer welfare implications of
governmental policies and firm strategy in
markets for medicines. Journal of Health
Economics, 44, 255-273.
Demand Estimation of OAD Markets in
India to find that Differential Pricing is
more welfare enhancing than
counterfactual worlds of price controls,
voluntary or compulsory licenses.
- Regional Heterogeneity in
Demand and hence in elasticity
- Lifestyle versus Drugs for Poor
- The Role of Physician
Prescriptions
More of A than I

4. Quick Summary of My Past Research 2/3
Paper Snapshot of Findings Unfinished Agenda Position in the A-I
Continuum
4. Bhaskarabhatla, A., Chatterjee, C., &
Karreman, B. (2016). Hit Where It Hurts: Cartel
Policing Using Targeted Sales and Supply
Embargoes. The Journal of Law and Economics,
59(4), 805-846.
- Private Distribution Inefficiencies in
Medicines in India
- Ring Leader Employs Collusive Tactics
and Punishment Strategies
- Anti-Trust Ineffective
- Welfare Effects Largely About Access to
Medicines
5. Bhaskarabhatla, A., & Chatterjee, C. (2017).
The role of physicians in prescribing irrational
fixed-dose combination medicines in India.
Social Science & Medicine, 174, 179-187.
- Agency Issues
- Consulting Physicians not just semi-
formally trained doctors involved in
irrational prescribing behavior
- Unlike the Opioids Crisis in US
- Dominant in Western India
- Impact on Health
Outcomes
- How are such medicines
sold in the country?
Largely about Access to
Quality Medicines and the
role of moral hazard and
agency
6. Chatterjee, C., Joshi, R., Sood, N., &
Boregowda, P. (2018). Government health
insurance and spatial peer effects: New evidence
from India. Social Science & Medicine, 196, 131-
141.
- Policy examination to increase uptake
of UHC in India
- Spatial Peer Effects playing a role
- Diminishing Returns in these effects
- What is the nature of
word of mouth effect?
- Does UHC have an
information spreading
role beyond providing
health access?
Largely about Access to
Healthcare

5. Quick Summary of My Past Research 3/3
Paper Snapshot of Findings Unfinished Agenda Position in the A-I
Continuum
7. Chakraborty, P., & Chatterjee, C. (2017). Does
environmental regulation indirectly induce
upstream innovation? New evidence from India.
Research Policy, 46(5), 939-955.
Cross border environmental regulation
creates positive externalities for
upstream innovation in Indian chemical
and leather/textile industry.
- Environment and the Health
- The Emerging Market for Air
Purifiers
More about new
incentives for I
8. Bhaskarabhatla, A., Chatterjee, C., Anurag, P., &
Pennings, E. (2016). Mitigating regulatory impact:
the case of partial price controls on metformin in
India. Health Policy and Planning, 32(2), 194-204.
Regulatory capture enables firms, more
large firms to diversify efforts and
escape the brunt of price cap regulation
in Indian pharmaceuticals.
- Welfare effects
- What’s happening in stents,
TKR, catheter and syringes?
Access and Welfare
Incentives for diffusion
9. Chatterjee, C. and Mahendiran, S. (2017) From
Pharmacy to a Lab - The Emerging Market for
Biological Drugs in India, Singh, H., Padmanabhan,
A., & Emanuel, E. J. (Eds.). (2017). India as a
Pioneer of Innovation. Oxford University Press.
Minimal capabilities in local players for
selling biological drugs. Role of science,
policy and firm complementary assets.
- Welfare effects
- Drill down firm capabilities
- What is the story in
vaccines?
More about supply side
and incentives for
innovation

6. Summary of Interests from 2011
I. Focus on Drugs and Pharmaceutical Markets in India and US
II. Emerging interest in Universal Health Coverage Diffusion
III. The Role of Physicians in India
IV. Status Quo in Distribution of Medicines in India
V. Regulatory Economics for Indian Healthcare
VI. Linkages between Environment and Health

7. Some Current Ongoing Research
i. Adbi, A., Chatterjee, C., Kinias, Z., & Singh, J. (2018). Women’s Disempowerment and
Preference for Risky Skin Whitening Products: Experimental Evidence from India (under
review). [A].
ii. Adbi, A, Chatterjee, C., Drev, M., & Mishra, A. (2017). When the Big One Came: A Natural
Experiment on Demand Shocks and Market Structure in India’s Influenza Vaccine Markets
(under review). [I].
iii. Branstetter, L., Chatterjee, C., Higgins, M.J., (2017). Starving (or fattening) the golden
goose? Generic entry and the incentives for early-stage pharmaceutical innovation. NBER
Working Paper No. 20532 & Hoover IP2 Working paper 17011 (under review). [I].
iv. Adbi, A, Bhaskarabhatla, A. and Chatterjee, C. (2018). Stakeholder Orientation and Market
Impact: Evidence from India (under review). [A].
v. Price controls & Regional Access to Malarial Drugs: Evidence from post-TRIPs India (with
Debi Prasad Mohapatra). [A + I].
vi. Regulation and Venture Capital in Early Stage Start-ups: Evidence from the European Union
Orphan Drug Act (with Yujin Kim and Matthew Higgins). [I + A].

8. Open to…..
i. Working on existing datasets/projects collecting data (for example, effects
of demonetization on health outcomes).
ii. Co-designing and co-creating new projects in vaccine markets, UHC,
distribution of medicines, physician agency, regional heterogeneity.
iii. Particularly interested in studying rising prevalence of mental health issues
in India. Causes and Consequences.
iv. Health technology and urban/rural healthy behavior with nudges.
v. Welfare consequences of public drug manufacturing, procurement and
distribution.
vi. Towards India’s Healthy Billions and also of the World.
vii. Thumbs up to my collaborators [CMU, Rotman-UT, GT, INSEAD, Erasmus,
Shanghai Tech, GMU, UMass-Amherst, Duke, IIMA, IDE-JETRO].

9. Thank You
i. Official: www.isb.edu/faculty-research/faculty/directory/chatterjee-chirantan
ii. Personal: https://sites.google.com/view/chirantanonline/
iii. Email: chirantan@gmail.com or chirantan_chatterjee@isb.edu
iv. Twitter: @chiruchat
v. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chirantanchatterjee/
vi. SSRN: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=830407