Drug Companies and Patents
For years drug companies have used the patents they file for as a means of having exclusive rights to manufature a new drug for 17 years (20 years now if the GATT treaty applies). This exclusivity has been on the basis of allowing the drug companies to recoup the expense of discovering and developing the drug and filing for FDA approval to sell the drug. Over the years, many have assumed that the drug companies were pricing the drugs so as to recoup their expenses and to make a reasonable profit.
The recent action of some of the drug companies brings into question whether or not the drug companies are in fact being reasonable in the pricing of new drugs. Practices such as paying a generic brand manufacturer to not manufacture a generic brand of their expired drug so as to maintain a monopoly is just one of the ruses. Another is to sue a generic brand manufacturer over supposed patent infringements as their patent is about to expire. The lawsuit extends the patent until the suit is settled which can last monthst or years.
The time has come to require the drug companies to justify the pricing of new drugs by having them devulging the actual cost of development and approval. Similar to the filings utilities needed to do prior to changes prices. After all, their 17 (or 20) year exclusivity on drug production and sale effectively makes them a monopoly. There needs to be some common sense introduced to the pricing of new drugs. There also needs to be some sanity introduced to prevent the blocking of generic drugs due to frivilous lawsuits.
8/28/01
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