Original Article
An Empirical Study of the Medical Supplies Distribution System in Japan
2002 Volume 11 Pages 5-21
Details
2002 Volume 11 Pages 5-21
The medical supplies distribution system in Japan is very complicated and hard to understand, and has been advocated the necessity of its modernization. Therefore, the distribution reform has been performed in 1992. Inoue and Tezuka (1998) analyzed theoretically the meaning of the distribution reform and obtained three propositions in their article. In this paper, we investigate the actual validity of their propositions based on the company financial data. The findings of this research are the following.
1) Medical-supplies manufacturer's profit is raised up rapidly after the reform.
2) As for the wholesalers, those profits increase after the reform, although it maybe temporary.
3) The profits of a medical organization, that is medicine price margin, definitely decrease after reform.
It made clear that these conclusions support Inoue and Tezuka (1998) theoretical propositions.
