Parallel importation as a policy option to reduce price of patented health technologies

Health care and access to patented technologies.

The past 25 years have witnessed a growing interaction between healthcare and intellectual property rights. This growth has been due to both new genetic technologies and the expanding scope of intellectual property protection. The interaction does not come without costs, however, and intellectual property rights are increasingly pointed to as a culprit in access to health care. Disputes over My...

Trinomial-tree Based Parallel Option Price Valuations

We examine how trinomial-tree based computations such as those involved in American or European-style option price valuations can be performed in parallel. Towards this we introduce a parallel algorithm for performing such computations on trinomial trees. The algorithm is described and analyzed in an architecture independent setting and achieves optimal theoretical speedup O(p) and is thus with...

Policy Options to Reduce Fragmentation in the Pooling of Health Insurance Funds in Iran

There are fragmentations in Iran’s health insurance system. Multiple health insurance funds exist, without adequate provisions for transfer or redistribution of cross subsidy among them. Multiple risk pools, including several private secondary insurance schemes, have resulted in a tiered health insurance system with inequitable benefit packages for different segments of the population. Also fra...

Mental Health Policy Adoption as a Seminal Event: A Response to Recent Commentaries

Villagization as a Policy Option to Rural Food Security: Facts from Villages in Assosa Zone, Benishangul-Gumuz Region, Ethiopia

Background: Villagization scheme was chosen as a policy option and implemented to ensure sustainable food security in Assosa zone, Benishangul-Gumuz region, Ethiopia, although it is blamed for intensifying food insecurity instead. Therefore, the present study aimed to examine the food security status of households gathered in planned villages in the framework of villagization. Methods: This cro...