Objective: To explore consumer attitudes towards generic medication. Methods: A quantitative method was used in this explorative study to assess consumer attitudes towards generic medication. A survey design was utilized. A questionnaire was devised that comprised four sections which assessed attitudes towards generic medication. A Living Standards Measure (LSM) assessed socio-economic status. Convenience sampling resulted in the recruitment of 266 respondents. Statistical analysis of the data included non-parametric (Chi-square and correlation analysis) and parametric statistics (factor analysis, MANOVA and regression analysis). Results: More than half the respondents (54.8%) report preference for original medication over generic medication. A large percentage believes there is a place for generic medication (88.9%). The majority (95%) indicate they would purchase generic medication if it proves to be just as effective as the original product. More respondents (91.2%) trust physician over pharmacist recommendations to purchase generics. More than half the respondents (57.9%) would purchase generic medication if recommended by friends but they trust their family members more (68.6%). The findings indicate that respondents generally hold favourable attitudes towards the efficacy of generic medication despite the fact that slightly more than half prefer original medication. Respondents indicate that pricing and branding influence their attitudes towards generic medication. Chi-square analyses indicated that more men would choose original medication and more women would choose generic medication. Age differences revealed that the older consumer is more likely to choose generic medication. White respondents indicated a preference for generic medication, while Black respondents indicated that they prefer original medication. Middle-class (LSM 5-8) and middle-upper class (LSM 9) respondents prefer generic medication, while upper class (LSM 10) respondents prefer original medication. The correlation analysis found no significant relationship between medical aid status and original or generic medication choice. A principle component factor analysis produced nine factors based on the items in the questionnaire, with only eight factors being subjected to further testing. These eight factors were subjected to a MANOVA and tested against gender and race with no significant differences found between men and women and between Black and White respondents. These eight factors were also subjected to further testing by means of regression analysis where it was found that three of the eight factors were statistically significant. These three factors can be productively explored in future research. Implications: This explorative study focused on consumer attitudes towards generic medication, however, it was identified that the consumer valued their physician’s recommendation for type of medication. For future studies, it would be beneficial to explore medical personnel (physician and pharmacist) attitudes towards generic medication as these individuals play an important role in product choice. Copyright / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Psychology / unrestricted

Chapter 1: Patents and Entry Competition in the Pharmaceutical Industry: The Role of Marketing Exclusivity Effective patent length for innovation drugs is severely curtailed because of extensive efficacy and safety tests required for FDA approval, raising concern over adequacy of incentives for new drug development. The Hatch-Waxman Act extends patent length for new drugs by five years, but also promotes generic entry by simplifying approval procedures and granting 180-day marketing exclusivity to a first generic entrant before the patent expires. In this paper we present a dynamic model to examine the effect of marketing exclusivity. We find that marketing exclusivity may be redundant and its removal may increase generic firms' profits and social welfare. Chapter 2: Why Authorized Generics?: Theoretical and Empirical Investigations Facing generic competition, the brand-name companies some-times launch generic versions themselves called authorized generics. This practice is puzzling. If it is cannibalization, it cannot be profitable. If it is divisionalization, it should be practiced always instead of sometimes. I explain this phenomenon in terms of switching costs in a model in which the incumbent first develops a customer base to ready itself against generic competition later. I show that only sufficiently low switching costs or large market size justifies launch of AGs. I then use prescription drug data to test those results and find support. Chapter 3: The Merger Paradox and R&D Oligopoly theory says that merger is unprofitable, unless a majority of firms in industry merge. Here, we introduce R&D opportunities to resolve this so-called merger paradox. We have three results. First, when there is one R&D firm, that firm can profitably merge with any number of non-R&D firms. Second, with multiple R&D firms and multiple non-R&D firms, all R&D firms can profitably merge. Third, with two R&D firms and two non-R&D firms, each R&D firms prefer to merge with a non-R&D firm. With three or more than non-R&D firms, however, the R&D firms prefer to merge with each other.

Les systèmes embarqués sont largement utilisés de nos jours. Pour des raisons d'efficacité, les plus contraints en termes de ressources sont toujours programmés en C et en assembleur. L'adoption de langages de plus haut niveau tels que C# ou Java offrirait plus d'abstraction au programmeur, ce qui réduirait les temps de développement et par conséquent le coût de ces systèmes. Certains d'entre eux ont déjà migré vers de tels langages, comme les téléphones mobiles ou les tablettes tactiles, mais ils sont équipés d'une grande quantité de mémoire externe et ne reflètent pas la majorité des systèmes embarqués.Cette thèse s'intéresse à l'implémentation de Java et .NET pour l'embarqué, et plus spécifiquement à la compilation efficace du polymorphisme. Ce polymorphisme génère un certain coût à l'exécution, comme des indirections dans le cas des appels de méthodes (polymorphisme d'inclusion), ou de la duplication de code dans le cas de la généricité (polymorphisme paramétrique). De nombreuses techniques d'implémentation ont été proposées, notamment pour Java. Il reste cependant à identifier lesquelles sont applicables pour le type de systèmes que nous ciblons, et à en concevoir de nouvelles pour certains aspects comme la généricité. Nous partons du principe que les techniques globales (hypothèse du monde clos) sont les mieux adaptées. Par l'analyse de types, nous détectons qu'une partie importante des programmes est monomorphe et qu'elle peut donc être compilée sans surcoût. Pour implémenter le polymorphisme restant, nous choisissons la technique la mieux adaptée au matériel cible. Nous proposons également une implémentation de la généricité qui est adaptée aux systèmes embarqués. D'après nos évaluations, l'impact négatif du polymorphisme sur l'efficacité est largement réduit. L'efficacité du code optimisé devrait s'approcher de celle du C, et les techniques que nous employons pourraient être applicables dans le contexte plus général du chargement dynamique. / Nowadays, embedded systems are ubiquitous. For efficiency reasons, most constrained systems are still programmed in C and assembly. Adopting higher-level languages such as C# or Java should enhance the level of abstraction offered to programmers and reduce development time and cost for these systems. A small part of them have migrated to such languages, like smartphones and tablet computers, but they have a large amount of external memory available and do not represent the majority of embedded systems.This thesis focuses on the implementation of Java and .NET for embedded systems, and more especially on the efficient compilation of polymorphism. Polymorphism generates an overhead at run-time, such as indirections when methods are invoked (inclusion polymorphism) or code duplication in the case of generics (parametric polymorphism). Many implementation techniques have been proposed, especially for Java. However, it remains to identify which ones are applicable in the context of low-end embedded systems. We consider that whole program optimization (closed-world assumption) is well-suited in this context. Using type analysis, we observe that most part of programs is monomorph, therefore it can be compiled with no overhead with respect to C. In order to implement the remaining polymorphism, we choose the technique which is better suited for the target hardware. We also propose an appropriate implementation of run-time generics. Our results show that the negative impact of polymorphism is mostly reduced. The efficiency of the optimized code should be comparable with C, and the techniques we employ could be applicable in the context of dynamic loading (open-world assumption).

Dans une économie mondialisée sur un secteur très concurrentiel, ce travail de recherche articulé en cinq parties propose d’étudier de nouveaux schémas de concurrence entre médicaments princeps et génériques au sein de l’Union Européenne, en intégrant les articulations entre régulation publique et incitations à innover. Dans une première partie introductive, les spécificités réglementaires très évolutives des marchés pharmaceutiques sont présentées ainsi que leurs conséquences induites sur les systèmes de prix et l'innovation.La deuxième partie, vise à analyser dans un premier temps l'approche adoptée par la Commission Européenne et les autorités de concurrence des divers Etats membres quant à la définition du marché pertinent de produits sur ces marchés. Plus particulièrement, dans un second temps, une étude empirique des schémas de substitution existants est développée à partir des décisions prises par la Commission Européenne de 1989 à 2011 en matière de fusions dans le secteur concerné. Cet examen des différents critères retenus pour définir la taille du marché pertinent souligne la tendance lourde à définir des marchés pertinents de produits toujours plus étroits, atteignant même le niveau moléculaire.Dans la troisième partie, l’analyse du système de prix de référence mis en place dans de nombreux Etats membres sur ces marchés concurrentiels, montre,en prenant en compte les avantages informatifs des princeps, dans quelle mesure la mise en place d'un tel système, peut favoriser l’innovation.Sous la quatrième partie, la modélisation de l'impact des nouveaux modèles d'accords de partage de risques se propose d’étudier comment de tels accords peuvent résoudre les problématiques d'aléa moral et de sélection adverse sur ces marchés, en incitant les entreprises à investir dans leur produit et à renforcer la qualité des biens fournis.Enfin, la partie cinq conclut le travail en mettant en perspective les résultats obtenus et en analysant les conséquences sous-jacentes pour les politiques publiques. / The aim of this thesis is to examine the competition patterns that exist between originators and generics by focusing on the articulations between regulation and incentives to innovate. Once the characteristics of regulation in pharmaceutical markets is reviewed in the first chapter and an analysis of some current challenges related to cost-containment measures and innovation issues is performed, then in the second chapter, an empirical study is performed to investigate substitution patterns. Based on the EC´s merger decisions in the pharmaceutical sector from 1989 to 2011, this study stresses the key criteria to define the scope of the relevant product market based on substitution patterns and shows the trend towards a narrower market in time. Chapters three and four aim to analyse in depth two widespread measures, the internal reference pricing system in off-patent markets, and risk-sharing schemes in patent-protected markets. By taking into account informational advantages of originators over generics, the third chapter shows the extent to which the implementation of a reference price for off-patent markets can contribute in promoting innovation. Finally, in the fourth chapter, the modeling of risk-sharing schemes explains how such schemes can help in solving moral hazard and adverse selection issues by continuously giving pharmaceutical companies incentives to innovate and supplying medicinal products of a higher quality.

We discuss the development of a number of algorithms and techniques to allow object oriented virtual machines to support many of the features needed by functional and other higher level languages. These features include non-strict evaluation, partial function application, higher ranked and higher kinded types. To test the mechanisms that we have developed we have also produced a compiler to allow the functional language Haskell to be compiled to a native executable for the Common Language Runtime. This has allowed us to demonstrate that the techniques we have developed are practically viable.

Due to the fact that the function of dispensing is not the exclusive practice of a single profession, there is much conflict surrounding the issue: it forms the crux of the pharmacy profession but it also forms part of doctors’ scope of practice. Separation of the acts of prescribing and dispensing would prevent the interest of the doctor, who has the potential to profit from selling medicines, being placed above the interest of the patient. It would, however, also affect the essential services that many dispensing doctors provide to pensioners, unemployed patients, those not covered by a medical scheme and those in rural areas. The implications of doctor dispensing are not clear as conflicting evidence suggests that dispensing doctors prescribe more medicine items, injections and antibiotics while preferring certain brand names on the one hand but on the other, evidence shows that dispensing doctors dispensed less expensive medicines compared to other health care providers. The main objective of this study was to analyse the prescribing patterns of dispensing doctors and other medicine providers in a section of the private health care sector of South Africa for 2005 to 2008 by using a medicine claims database. A retrospective drug utilisation review was conducted by extracting data from a medicine claims database for a four–year period, from 1 January 2005 to 31 December 2008. The results revealed that dispensing doctors had a lower cost per prescription compared to other health care providers (R112.66 ± R4.45 vs. R258.48 ± R23.93) and also had a lower cost per medicine item (R39.62 ± R2.18 vs. R112.43 ± R7.56) for the entire study period from 2005 to 2008. Dispensing doctors provided more items per prescription compared to other health care providers (2.85 ± 0.05 items vs. 2.30 ± 0.06 items) but other health care providers claimed more prescriptions per patient per year (7.50 ± 1.15 prescriptions vs. 3.29 ± 0.07 prescriptions). A higher percentage of generic medicine items were provided to patients visiting dispensing doctors. Dispensing doctors treated a majority of patients aged above 19 to 44 years of age while other health care providers treated a majority of patients above 59 years of age. Both dispensing doctors and other health care providers treated a majority of female patients and issued a majority of medicine items to treat acute conditions. The results also revealed that dispensing doctors generally provided relatively inexpensive medicine items, including generic and innovator items, for female and male patients of all ages while other health care providers showed the opposite trend and issued relatively expensive medicine items to these patients. However, when analysing the top twelve pharmacological groups claimed, dispensing doctors had relatively higher costs compared to other health care providers for nine of the pharmacological groups (central nervous system, analgesic, cardio–vascular, ear, nose and throat, dermatological, urinary system, antimicrobial, endocrine system and cytostatic). The pharmacological groups contributing to the highest number of medicine items and highest medicine cost contribution were the antimicrobial group for dispensing doctors and cardio–vascular group for other health care providers. / Thesis (M.Pharm. (Pharmacy Practice))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.

Due to the fact that the function of dispensing is not the exclusive practice of a single profession, there is much conflict surrounding the issue: it forms the crux of the pharmacy profession but it also forms part of doctors’ scope of practice. Separation of the acts of prescribing and dispensing would prevent the interest of the doctor, who has the potential to profit from selling medicines, being placed above the interest of the patient. It would, however, also affect the essential services that many dispensing doctors provide to pensioners, unemployed patients, those not covered by a medical scheme and those in rural areas. The implications of doctor dispensing are not clear as conflicting evidence suggests that dispensing doctors prescribe more medicine items, injections and antibiotics while preferring certain brand names on the one hand but on the other, evidence shows that dispensing doctors dispensed less expensive medicines compared to other health care providers. The main objective of this study was to analyse the prescribing patterns of dispensing doctors and other medicine providers in a section of the private health care sector of South Africa for 2005 to 2008 by using a medicine claims database. A retrospective drug utilisation review was conducted by extracting data from a medicine claims database for a four–year period, from 1 January 2005 to 31 December 2008. The results revealed that dispensing doctors had a lower cost per prescription compared to other health care providers (R112.66 ± R4.45 vs. R258.48 ± R23.93) and also had a lower cost per medicine item (R39.62 ± R2.18 vs. R112.43 ± R7.56) for the entire study period from 2005 to 2008. Dispensing doctors provided more items per prescription compared to other health care providers (2.85 ± 0.05 items vs. 2.30 ± 0.06 items) but other health care providers claimed more prescriptions per patient per year (7.50 ± 1.15 prescriptions vs. 3.29 ± 0.07 prescriptions). A higher percentage of generic medicine items were provided to patients visiting dispensing doctors. Dispensing doctors treated a majority of patients aged above 19 to 44 years of age while other health care providers treated a majority of patients above 59 years of age. Both dispensing doctors and other health care providers treated a majority of female patients and issued a majority of medicine items to treat acute conditions. The results also revealed that dispensing doctors generally provided relatively inexpensive medicine items, including generic and innovator items, for female and male patients of all ages while other health care providers showed the opposite trend and issued relatively expensive medicine items to these patients. However, when analysing the top twelve pharmacological groups claimed, dispensing doctors had relatively higher costs compared to other health care providers for nine of the pharmacological groups (central nervous system, analgesic, cardio–vascular, ear, nose and throat, dermatological, urinary system, antimicrobial, endocrine system and cytostatic). The pharmacological groups contributing to the highest number of medicine items and highest medicine cost contribution were the antimicrobial group for dispensing doctors and cardio–vascular group for other health care providers. / Thesis (M.Pharm. (Pharmacy Practice))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.

This thesis is concerned with philosophical perspectives on the stigma of mental illness, with each chapter exploring different philosophical issues. Chapter one delineates the central concept around which the rest of the work revolves: the stigma of mental illness. It provides an outline of the stigma mechanism, how it applies to mental illness, why it is such a large public health concern and what has been done so far to combat it. Chapter two is concerned with the application of recent literature in the philosophy of implicit bias to the topic of mental illness. It suggests that we have hitherto been preoccupied with explicit formulations of the stigma mechanism, but argues that there are distinctive issues involved in combatting forms of discrimination in which the participants are not cognisant of their attitudes or actions, and that anti-stigma initiatives for mental illness should take note. Chapter three applies the philosophical literature concerning the ethics of our epistemic practices to the stigma of mental illness. It contains an analysis of how epistemic injustice- primarily in the forms of testimonial injustice and stereotype threat- affects those with mental illnesses. The fourth chapter brings in issues in the philosophy of science (particularly the philosophy of psychiatry) to explore the possibility of intervening on the stigma process to halt the stigma of mental illness. The first candidate (preventing labelling) is discounted, and the second (combatting stereotype) is tentatively endorsed. The fifth chapter is concerned with how language facilitates the stigma of mental illness. It suggests that using generics to talk about mental illness (whether the knowledge structure conveyed is inaccurate or accurate) is deeply problematic. In the former, it conveys insidious forms of social stereotyping. In the latter, it propagates misinformation by presenting the category as a quintessential one.

Die folgende Dissertation, die im Mai 2016 verteidigt wurde, beschäftigt sich mit sprachlichen Manifestationen von Genderkonzeptualisierungen im aktuellen schriftlichen Sprachgebrauch in Kroatien. Die Bedeutung von Genderzuschreibungen für die Benennung von Menschen wird sowohl aus synchroner als auch aus diachroner Perspektive auf Sprache betrachtet und analysiert. Das Material dieser Studie besteht neben sprachlichen und präskriptiven Quellen aus Tageszeitungen und linguistischem Material aus der kroatischen feministisch-queeren Gemeinschaft auch aus den Ergebnissen einer umfassenden Perzeptionsstudie und Expert*inneninterviews. Die Arbeit befasst sich mit drei zentralen Fragen: 1. Wie beeinflussen soziale Gendervorstellungen Fragen linguistischer Standardisierungsprozesse und wie werden diese Vorstellungen zudem in dominante Diskurse über Korrektheit im Sprachgebrauch eingeschrieben? 2. Welche Wirkung auf Genderkonzeptionen haben Sprachnormen im Bereich der personalen Appellation und welche kognitive Wirkung haben alternative Benennungsformen? 3. Welche Bedeutung haben Fragen des geschlechtergerechten Sprachgebrauchs bei politischen und aktivistischen Bemühungen von Genderexpert*innen in Kroatien und welche Strategien verwenden kroatische Genderexpert*innen, um eine diskriminierende Sprachnutzung zu vermeiden? / This dissertation thesis, which was defended in May 2016, deals with linguistic manifestations of gender conceptualizations in current written language usage in Croatia. The importance of gender for the linguistic naming of people is considered and analyzed from both a synchronic and a diachronic perspective on language. In addition to linguistic and prescriptive sources, the material of this study consists of daily newspapers and material from the Croatian feminist-queer community as well as oft he results of a perception study and expert inteviews. The thesis deals with three central questions: 1. How do social gender conceptions influence questions of linguistic standardization processes and how are these conceptions inscribed in dominant discourses about correctness in language use? 2. What effect do linguistic norms have on gendered conceptions of people and what is the cognitive effect of alternative naming practices? 3. What meaning is allocated to questions of gender-fair language use in political and activist efforts of gender experts in Croatia and what strategies do Croatian gender experts use to avoid discriminatory language use?

The aim of the diploma thesis is to describe and analyse information sources, which are useful for the molecules portfolio selection suitable for the future development of a generic drug. These information sources should be examined on the case study of the portfolio selection in a given therapeutic area. The topic of the diploma thesis is presented in the context of basic principles and functions of the generic farmaceutical industry and its information needs. The introductory chapter characterizes the farmaceutical industry in general and warn on a competitive environment, which the farmaceutical companies can succeed in thanks to the advanced methods of the business intelligence. The second chapter focuses on the differences betwen the generic and original pharmaceutical industry, a drug lifecycle is also introduced there. The next chapter specifies the methods of the business intelligence in the generic pharmaceutical industry on the ground of its information needs. The fourth chapter plays a key role. First of all, it introduces general characteristics of information sources used in the strategic portfolio management. Secondly, the detailed description and analysis of eight main information sources used by the generic companies within business intelligence follows. In the last chapter these...