Dr John Liddicoat - Repositioning Generic Drugs: Empirical Realities

On 10 June 2022, Dr John Liddicoat (LML Senior Research Associate) will present his paper ‘Repositioning Generic Drugs: Empirical Realities’ at the Munich Summer Institute. Only 8.5% of papers submitted to this conference are accepted for presentations. 

Commentators claim that drug repositioning (ie developing new uses for authorised drugs) significantly slows when generics are authorised and, therefore, law reform is necessary to encourage more R&D. This study empirically examines this claim by analysing records of clinical trials. It finds that once generics are authorised: i) commercial trials continue at ‘active’ rates for approximately half of the drugs studied, and ii) the number of hospital and university trials actually increases. These findings cast doubt on whether additional incentives are needed. They also indicate that a more effective way to reposition drugs is for recently established government programmes to embrace IP strategies and leverage the hospital and university trials as an R&D pipeline.

The repurposing of known drugs for new medical uses remains a core focus of LML’s research, alongside the CeBIL research programme.