In [197]:
import ipywidgets as widgets
from ipywidgets import interact, interact_manual
from IPython.display import HTML

HTML('''<script>
code_show=true; 
function code_toggle() {
 if (code_show){
 $('div.input').hide();
 } else {
 $('div.input').show();
 }
 code_show = !code_show
} 
$( document ).ready(code_toggle);
</script>
<form action="javascript:code_toggle()"><input type="submit" value="Click here to toggle on/off the raw code."></form>''')
Out[197]:

The Pharmaceutical Industry

You are a data analyst for policymakers in your country.

You have gone through the hard work of cleaning data and presenting them in sensible visualizations to brief your boss. However, while your graphs and diagrams are clean and beautiful, you still need to process some insights and summarize them for your boss.

Section 1 Tasks

  • Data Response Questions 1, 2, 3, 4 (Indicated below)
  • Identify broad trends and identify basics of exploratory data analysis

1A: Global Spending on Medicine

In [198]:
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
 
# Amalgamated data from The Pharmaceutical Industry in Figures (2018), WHO (2014)
# as well as data from The Growing Pharmaceuticals Market: Expert Forecasts and Analysis (2018)
height = [90, 199, 300, 935, 1170]
bars = ('2000','2010','2014', '2017', '2021 (est)')
y_pos = np.arange(len(bars))
 
plt.bar(y_pos, height)
 
plt.xticks(y_pos, bars)
plt.title("Figure 1: Global Spending on Medicine")
plt.ylabel('Value in billion (USD)')
plt.xlabel('Year')
plt.show()
In [222]:
height = [2928, 2616, 2140, 2044, 2116,1918,1954,1690,907,849]
bars = ('2007','2008','2009', '2010', '2011', '2012', '2013', '2014','2015','2016')
y_pos = np.arange(len(bars))
 
plt.bar(y_pos, height)
 
plt.xticks(y_pos, bars)
plt.title("Figure 2: Total number of deaths among AIDS cases in Europe")
plt.xlabel('Year')
plt.show()

Source: HIV/AIDS surveillance in Europe 2017, WHO Regional Office
for Europe and European Centre for Disease Prevention and control
(ECDC), November 2017

Question 1: Account for the trend in global spending on medicine. (You may support your answer using information from figure 1 and 2)


Table 1: Spending on healthcare as a percentage of GDP

In [200]:
import pandas as pd

pd.options.display.max_columns = 30
df = pd.read_csv('/home/leekahhow1/spending_healthcare_percentage_GDP.csv')
df
Out[200]:
Country 1980 1990 2000 2010 2015 2016
0 Austria 7.0 7.7 9.2 10.1 10.3 10.4
1 Belgium 6.1 7.1 7.9 9.9 10.5 10.4
2 Denmark 8.4 8.0 8.1 10.4 10.3 10.4
3 Finland 5.9 7.2 6.8 8.9 9.4 9.3
4 France 6.7 8.0 9.5 10.7 11.1 11.0
5 Germany 8.1 8.0 9.8 11.0 11.2 11.3
6 Iceland 5.9 7.4 9.0 8.8 8.6 8.6
7 Ireland 7.5 5.6 5.9 10.5 7.8 7.8
8 Luxembourg 4.6 5.1 5.9 7.0 6.0 6.3
9 Netherlands 6.6 7.1 7.1 10.4 10.7 10.5
10 Sweden 7.8 7.3 7.4 8.5 11.0 11.0
11 Switzerland 6.6 7.4 9.3 10.7 12.1 12.4
12 United Kingdom 5.1 5.1 6.0 8.5 9.9 9.7
13 USA 8.2 11.3 12.5 16.4 16.9 17.2
14 Japan 6.3 5.7 7.2 9.2 10.9 10.9

Question 2: Using table 1, compare the trend in healthcare spending as a percentage of GDP using any two countries of your choice. Is this consistent with the overall trend in global spending on medicine?

1B: Importance of Research and Development (R&D)

In [201]:
height = [179,413,1044,2558]
bars = ('1970-1980s', '1980-1990s', '1990-2000s', '2000-2010s')
y_pos = np.arange(len(bars))
 
plt.bar(y_pos, height)
 
plt.xticks(y_pos, bars)
plt.title("Figure 3: Estimated full cost of bringing a new chemical or biological entity to market (million $, valued at 2013)")
plt.ylabel('Value in billion (USD)')
plt.xlabel('Year')
plt.show()

Source: Joseph. A. DiMasi, Henry G. Grabowski, Ronald W.Hansen, Innovation in the pharmaceutical industry: New estimates of R&D costs, Journal of Health Economics, 47 (2016), 20–33

In [224]:
import os
from IPython.display import Image

fdir = 'images/'

@interact
def show_images(file=os.listdir('images/')):
    display(Image(fdir+file))

Important Findings


All new medicines introduced into the market are the result of lengthy, costly and risky research and development (R&D) conducted by pharmaceutical companies:

  • By the time a medicinal product reaches the market, an average of 12-13 years will have elapsed since the first synthesis of the new active substance;

  • The cost of researching and developing a new chemical or biological entity was estimated at € 1,926 million ($ 2,558 million in year 2013 dollars) in 2016 (DiMasi et al, Journal of Health Economics, January 2016);

  • On average, only one to two of every 10,000 substances synthesised in laboratories will successfully pass all stages of development required to become a marketable medicine.

Question 3: Using Figure 3, r&d_percentage_sales or otherwise, explain the key feature of the pharmaceutical industry that results in dominance by a few large firms

Question 4: How can Singapore benefit from trends in healthcare spending and R&D for pharmaceutical industries?

  • Discuss with your group
  • After writing down some thoughts, watch the video to find out more
In [217]:
%%html
<iframe width=900 height =800 src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3GiIAWFoIJI" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
In [221]:
%%html
When instructed to, click <a href="https://leekahhow.neocities.org/Pharma" target="_blank">here</a> to proceed
When instructed to, click here to proceed