Drug Diffusion through Clinical Trial Sites: Evidence from Physician Prescribing of New Cancer Drugs
with Pinka Chatterji and Chun-Yu Ho.
Abstract: Clinical trials benefit patients directly by providing novel treatments, but indirect benefits of clinical trials are less explored. This study analyzes the localized impacts of exposure to clinical trials of new drugs on physician prescribing behavior. Utilizing the prescribing patterns of more than 10,000 physicians across 29 new cancer drugs approved between 2014 and 2019, we find that physicians exposing to clinical trials of new cancer drugs increases the likelihood of prescribing these drugs by 0.18 percentage points, representing a 14% increase relative to the average prescribing rate. Notably, the effects are more pronounced for physicians graduating from higher-ranked medical schools, having more experience and practicing in metropolitans. Further, our results suggest that the exposure to clinical trials reduces the physicians’ information acquisition cost of new cancer drugs. Specifically, the cost can be reduced by proximities to trial sites and to the first author of pivotal trial and by affiliation with trial sites.