Consumers suffer from high drug prices. They split pills in half, decide between paying for medications and rent, and forego needed medicines. High prices stem in large part from pharmaceutical companies’ anticompetitive games. This essay discusses the crucial role antitrust enforcement agencies can play in addressing ‘pay for delay’ settlements and ‘product hopping’ and draws lessons from this enforcement. As an initial observation, the pharmaceutical industry is unique. In many industries, there are multiple incentives for innovation, with patents low on the list. But in the pharmaceutical industry, patents are important. The reason is simple: it takes a long time to reach the market and is expensive to do so.

中文翻译：

---

美国和智利的药品反托拉斯执法

消费者遭受高昂的药品价格之苦。他们将药丸分成两半，在药物支付和房租之间做出决定，然后放弃所需的药物。高价格很大程度上来自制药公司的反竞争游戏。本文讨论了反托拉斯执法机构在解决“延迟付款”和“产品跳跃”中可以发挥的关键作用，并从这种执法中吸取教训。初步观察，制药行业是独一无二的。在许多行业中，有多种创新激励措施，而专利排在最后。但是在制药行业，专利很重要。原因很简单：进入市场需要很长时间，而且这样做成本很高。