Pharmaceutical patents are patents for inventions within the pharmaceutical industry. Patents give exclusive rights for an invention for a product or a process of making a product [1]. There are many aspects to patents in the pharmaceutical industry that are both pros and cons; it just depends on what industry you are in. Pharmaceutical companies take out patents so they can regulate the market and restrict competition from other companies. By obtaining patents pharmaceutical companies also attract investment. In addition to this pharmaceutical companies can also regulate the price of the drug as they will be the only company selling that drug. However these aspects of patents can adversely affect the generics industry. The generics industry cannot make or sell drugs that are patented but once a patent licence expires, both the generics industry and the WHO see increased benefits as drugs become more widely available around the world (i.e. developing countries) at a lower price. Here we will discuss the pros and cons of patents from the point of view of the pharmaceutical industry, generics industry and the WHO. As we said above patents grant exclusive rights to an invention or a process of making and invention. So what does a patent cover? Chemical patents cover the structure of a molecule and also the process in which the molecule is made. This is a good thing for pharmaceutical companies who take out these patents as they can regulate the market. Because these companies own the rights of a molecule or drug exclusively they can restrict competition from competitors. Companies that have patents on drugs have the added benefit that they are the sole distributor of that drug and all profits go to them. Other companies cannot repl... ... middle of paper ... ...ents expiring as drugs become available at cheaper costs and therefore more people can gain access to these drugs, including 3rd world countries. It is clear to see that there are many pros and cons to patents in the pharmaceutical industry. The system that is in motion at present between the big pharmaceutical companies, the generics industry and the WHO seems to be working efficiently. Some may complain that the pharmaceutical companies are creating too big a monopoly and are greedy but without them discovery of new medicines wouldn’t happen. Patents have thus far ensured that inventors and researchers reap economic rewards for their work and new treatments and new medicines are made available on a regular basis. Essentially without patents there would be no innovation and discovery of new medicines. And without that we would be no better off than we are now.
(7) Hall B. Patents and Patent Policy -. 2007. The 'Secondary' of the 'Secondary' of the 'Secondary' of the 'Secondary' of the 'Secondary' of the 'Secondary' of the 'Secondary' of the Morse H. SETTLEMENT OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY DISPUTES IN THE PHARMACEUTICAL AND MEDICAL DEVICE INDUSTRIES: ANTITRUST RULES. Allison JR, Lemley MA, Moore KA, Trunkey RD. Valuable patents. Geol.
It is not hard to obtain the same drugs from different sources so the customer loyalty is virtually non-existent and the pharmacies have to try extremely hard to sustain their consumer base.
Abramsons points are well taken, and it truly is a shame that the medical industry has become a business. In my opinion, if the pharmaceutical industry was taken out of the hands of the capitalist marketplace and given the to the government, it would become less of a business. Prescription drugs are not ordinary consumer goods; they are products that can ultimately save lives. If a money-oriented company controls these products, it is inevitable selling the drug would become a greater priority than actually creating a beneficial drug. Which as a result, will to the creation many well-marketed yet ineffective
In general the drug manufacturing industry is very risky. In order companies to stay in business they need to research and develop new products. Firstly companies need to develop new compounds, however only one on every ten thousand compounds becomes approved and it takes years to do this. Then only 3 out of 20 drugs make enough revenue to cover their development cost and only 1 out of every 3 drugs generates enough money to cover the costs of previously failed drugs.
In Melody Peterson’s “Our Daily Meds” , the history of marketing and advertising in the pharmaceutical industry is explored. The first chapter of the book, entitled “Creating disease”, focuses on how major pharmaceutical companies successfully create new ailments that members of the public believe exist. According to Peterson, the success that these drug manufacturers have experienced can be attributed to the malleability of disease, the use of influencial people to promote new drugs and the efficient usage of media outlets.
In America, it has become a battle to earn a high paying job to cope with the expenses of a typical American. It has become even more of a battle for some people to afford medical prescriptions to keep healthy. Health becomes a crucial issue when discussed among people. No matter what, at one point or another, everyone is going to stand as a victim of the pharmaceutical industry. The bottom line is Americans are paying excessive amounts of money for medical prescriptions. Health-Care spending in the U.S. rose a stunning 9.3% in 2002, which is the greatest increase for the past eleven years. (Steele 46) Many pharmaceutical companies are robbing their clients by charging extreme rates for their products.
Jonas Salk once said that things such as the sun and his polio vaccine should belong “to the people”. These “things” also include the genes that the Human Genome Project and all its collaborators have isolated thus far. The Human Genome Project’s mission is to sequence and map all of the genes that make up the human genome in order to improve medical treatment for genetic diseases and quite possibly eradicate them. However, companies who are involved in the isolation of individual genes are lobbying for the right to patent said genes. These companies are trying to establish a monopoly on something that is as much a creation of nature as is the human body. This should not be allowed because it would impede medical research, make treatment harder to obtain as well as expensive, and violate the code of medical ethics.
“A patent is an intellectual property right granted by the Government of the United States of America to an inventor “to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the invention throughout the United States or importing the invention into the United States” for a limited time in exchange for public disclosure of the invention when the patent is granted.” ("Patents," 2014) There are three types of patents, utility, design, and plant. Utility patents protect useful process, machines, article of manufacture, and composition of matter. Design patents pro...
This fact validates the incentive pharmaceutical companies have to get a patent and acquire more power. Pfizer encourages R&D because of the incentives and a desire to obtain patents to receive more profit. Pfizer has to promote itself to be successful, creating a brand image that consumers will trust. If the company can advertise successfully, more consumers will purchase their products. Pfizer must also be generating products efficiently in order to save and use existing resources, while manufacturing their products at low costs to stay competitive....
The patent system grants an exclusive right of manufacturing, selling, and profiting from a specific invention. It is designed with the purpose of providing advance research and development and to encourage broader economic activity; however, complete disclosure is required in exchange for the twenty year protection to become monopoly.
The pharmaceutical and biotech industries must be free to develop and research life saving medicines and other advancements that will benefit society. If this cannot be done, progress would never be made. People would still be contracting polio a...
The traditional rationale for patents is that protection of inventions will spur innovation and aid in the dissemination of information about technical advances. By prohibiting others from copying an invention, patents allow inventors to recoup their investment in development while at the same time revealing the workings of the new invention to the public.
One thing is guaranteed to happen; people will always get sick. Diseases and bacteria are always changing and the human body’s immune system isn’t always prepared to fight it off. The pharmaceutical industry knows this, and that’s why they are a multi-billion dollar industry. Today, you will see a pill that will virtually cure every kind of “disease” out there whether it’s physical, emotional, or neurological. What is a “disease”? Supposedly if you have constant headaches, you have a disease. If you’re overweight, you have a disease. If you have trouble concentrating, you have a disease. Any little problem that you can think of, there most likely will be a pill out there that will “cure” that problem. First, your body is the only thing that can cure a disease. Second, everyone experiences these little problems and there are simple solutions that can “cure” these problems without the expensive pills that can cause harmful side effects. Why isn’t this information being told to us? Because of money. Notice that in all commercial breaks there is a commercial advertising some kind of pill for a certain kind of problem. They make so much money that the drug companies can employ thousands of lobbyists to bribe, lie, and payout almost anyone they need to to get them to advertise their product. Even politicians benefit from the pharmaceutical companies, and if politicians have their back, then how can they be expected to be stopped? Modern medicine has no doubt done wonders for many people to get better from illnesses, but this industry is getting way out of hand.
The main idea behind patents is to promote technological innovations. For there to be technological innovation for society as a whole, two things must happen. First, people must be able to study other people's innovations in order to further technology in society, because they can use the ideas of others to make even greater innovations. Second, people must have incentive to innovate. The most obvious solution to the first idea would be to make all innovations public, so that as soon as someone invents something, others are free to build off of it to further technology.
They are a type of intellectual property, similar to trademarks and copyrights. A patented invention is stamped with the word patent, and a number assigned to the patent. Some are marked with the location of the patent for example ‘China Patent’ and a number, indicating it was patented China. One item can be covered by more than one patent, as in the case of a laptop. After a patent application is submitted, a candidate is allowed to mark a product patent pending, but that does not convey any legal protection. It is illegal to mark an item as patented if it doesn’t have a patent.