Research

Using difference-in-differences, triple-difference, and Poisson DID on Chinese pharmaceutical patent data from 2015–2021, we find that the 2016 MAH reform increased patent authorizations, backward citations, and patent claims among non-Traditional Chinese Medicine companies, with no significant effects for TCM firms. By separating drug marketing rights from manufacturing, the reform provides evidence on how regulatory design shapes heterogeneous innovation responses in an emerging pharmaceutical market.

Uses all 23,129 patent positions on China’s national drug patent declaration platform, CNIPA invalidation decisions, and volume-based procurement (VBP) rules to describe how the 2021 linkage system’s challenger reward works in practice. The reward—up to twelve months of exclusivity for the first approved generic whose own invalidation request succeeds—had been publicly awarded twice as of September 2026, both times to one firm group, although declarants won whole invalidations of 16 declared patents. Most contesting instead asserts non-infringement against later-expiring formulation patents, a route the reward does not cover: in 99.4% of within-application comparisons, that assertion falls on the longer-lived patent. Because VBP rules count non-infringement undertakings, the patent statements with direct consequences for sales are procurement undertakings. All results are descriptive.

Most ACE studies look at mental and physical outcomes one at a time, hiding the comorbidity patterns clinicians actually see. Using the 2022–2024 National Survey of Children’s Health (N = 151,531; pooled 2017–2024 N = 318,866), we classify children into four groups — no conditions, physical only, mental only, and co-occurring — and run survey-weighted multinomial logistic regressions with a 9-item ACE score that excludes disability discrimination to avoid reverse causality.

Children with four or more ACEs show a nearly tenfold elevation in co-occurring risk (RRR = 9.77), substantially higher than mental-only (7.43) and physical-only (1.90). The Relative Excess Risk due to Interaction (RERI) is positive and significant at every ACE level, indicating that co-occurring conditions exceed what one would expect from adding physical and mental risks independently. Financial hardship and household mental illness are the ACE types most strongly tied to the co-occurring profile, with results replicating in pooled 2017–2024 data and holding across alternative outcome definitions, ACE specifications, and demographic subgroups. The findings suggest ACEs activate shared vulnerabilities spanning both health domains and that screening and treatment should address physical and mental health simultaneously.