Pharmaceutical News 2.0

Excerpt:

MONDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2009
Filed from Portland, Oregon

PRESIDENT CORREA’S POLICY PRESCRIPTION

“I as President can order that we issue a compulsory license for Brand X, so they can copy this medicine and make generics, and the people have access to this medicine, to health, to a cure for their illness. [Applause.] And this is exactly what we are going to begin to do, with respect to medicines, with respect to agrochemicals, with respect to everything possible.”

Rafael CORREA Delgado
July 16, 2009

Context: Rafael Correa is the president of the Republic of Ecuador. First, elected in 2006, President Correa was re-elected as the leader of his country of 14.6 million people in April. The comment above is from a speech he gave this past summer on national television - and before a live audience. That was the speech. On Sunday, October 18, President Correa announced his intention to move forward with a policy of compulsory licensing for pharmaceuticals.

Comments, Part I. There are a number of strands to this story. One thread leads to the Ecuador’s economic policies, especially those involving Ecuador’s dealings with the rest of the world. From the repudiation of debt to the raising of numerous tariffs, these are policies that have gotten the world’s attention.

Another strand links to the WTO tortured discussions and current policies on “access to medicines.” WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy has described these policies as a balance between the long-term need to foster innovation and the short term necessity of ensuring that poor countries have access to the medicines they need at prices they can afford to pay.

A third strand, of course, relates to the global discussion of healthcare policy.

Read the rest of the thoughts on President Correa’s pharmaceutical patent policy.

Pharmaceutical Patents pharmaceutical patent

Roy Bodem

Without the potential for patent profits, there would be no reward for innovative ideas that lead to beneficial products. These products are the technological advances that make life better. Pharmaceutical companies have the ability to develop new drugs that can prolong life and provide cures to diseases that affect people worldwide. Patents are especially important to these drug companies because they can guarantee profit and make all the time and cost put into developing their new drug worthwhile. A patent is an economic catalyst to these pharmaceutical companies who push to research new and beneficial drugs on the premise that they will be able to reap rewards by way of profits.

Profits for patented pharmaceutical represent a reward that pharmaceutical companies earn through years of research and development and only then will they be able to profit from their work. The patent system allows drug companies to profit from patents by prohibiting any other company from marketing and selling an identical prescription drug. This system seems to be the best way to provide drug companies with the reward of potential profit for the research and development spending that in necessary to develop new and innovative prescription drugs.

What is a patent?

A patent is a property right to a product and in the case of pharmaceutical companies is usually in the form of a chemical formula that may not be duplicated by any rival company. The life of a patent is 20 years from the time the patent is issued. (Lehman, 2003) This gives the company ample time to profit from its invention. An invention is “any new or useful process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter.” (Lehman, 2003) This means that the inventor has the guarantee that that his or her product will be the only product of its exact kind on the market for 20 years.

Inventions can also be new improvements to previous inventions. New inventions are evaluated by National Patent Offices to compare new inventions with previous inventions that are similar to be sure that the invention is novel and not just an obvious replica of a previously patented invention. (Lehman, 2003)

Thomas Jefferson reviewed and granted the first patent and the patent review process has remained the same ever since. (Roth, 2005) Patents are reviewed by searching through previously granted patents to make sure that the patent is new and unique. This patent provides the researcher with the incentive to spend the costs, time, and effort to be granted a patent. (Roth, 2005) The inventor knows that his work will be rewarded with potential profits once a patent is granted because a patent ensures no competitor will be able to copy his or her idea and prevent the inventor from profiting. (Roth, 2005)

Patents must be enforced.

Patents are enforced by the National Patent Offices, World Trade Organization (WTO) and evaluated by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). (Lehman, 2003) These organizations provide the patent protection to those seeking the protection by giving judicial enforcement of the intellectual property rights. (Lehman, 2003) This means that a company could sue a rival if it felt its patent was being violated and have official documents at the National Patent Offices to substantiate its claim to a product.

Patents are available for a variety of products including prescription drugs. Patents in the pharmaceutical industry are somewhat different and possibly more important than in other industries because of the laboratory research and clinical trials that must be done beforehand. This research costs the pharmaceutical company and is usually accomplished through capital investment on the basis that the result will lead to profit for the company. (Lehman, 2003)

Read the rest of this article on pharmaceutical patent protection.

Pharmaceutical Patents pharmaceutical patent

Table of Contents

* Overview of patent system
* Patents provide incentive to innovate
* Process of innovation is long, risky and expensive
* Patents help save lives, enhance life
* Strong IP protection is needed to ensure pharmaceutical innovation continues
* IP: The key to innovation and growth

Overview

* Abraham Lincoln said that patents “added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius.” But, it was not genius alone that Lincoln and our founding fathers desired from a patent system. Rather, their objective was innovation. Innovation is why we protect intellectual property.
* The founding fathers felt so strongly about the importance of innovation that patent and copyright protection is the only right expressly mentioned in the original articles of the Constitution.
* Patent protection in the United States gives inventors the exclusive right to sell an invention for up to 20 years before others may copy and sell it. However, the effective patent life, which only begins to run when the patent is granted and the invention can be marketed, is closer to 18 ½ years. For pharmaceuticals, the effective patent life is actually closer to 11 or 12 years since federal law requires a company to test its product for safety and efficacy and secure regulatory approval before marketing it, a process that can take years.
* Patents are a kind of agreement in which an inventor is given a limited period of time of exclusivity to make and sell a product incorporating an invention in exchange for agreeing to make his or her invention public, thus enabling and encouraging the continuation of scientific discovery.

Read the rest of Innovation.org’s pharmaceutical patent paper (pdf).

Pharmaceutical Patents pharmaceutical patents