Institutions, transactions and interest groups: influence on the pharmaceutical products regulation.

This paper analyzes the determinants of public intervention in the commercialization of pharmaceutical drugs in a limited, specific institutional context. We predict that for groups of pharmaceutical drugs of similar intrinsic characteristics, those factors taken into consideration by regulating authorities for the purpose of imposing restrictions on their commercialization involve transactional characteristics and characteristics of the interest groups involved. However, institutional idiosyncrasies separating countries cause variations between the countries in the manner in which consumer use is made possible. These results allow us to consider the inherent difficulties of achieving the simultaneous commercialization of pharmaceutical drugs in all countries, and thus, of achieving the international harmonization so sought by pharmaceutical regulators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]