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Patents Choking Off Medical Research
pq writes "The New Republic has an insightful article talking about the
"absence of truly innovative drugs in current drug company pipelines. And the explanation for that might well come from the supposed fount of American innovation: our patent system." Apparently they are trapped in a situation where "it's much easier to argue that `patents support innovation' than to try to explain that some patents are good for innovation while others are bad." A long read, but unlike the latest copy-protected mp3 player, this is definitely stuff that matters!"
I think one solution would be to put a cap on the royalties that one has to pay to X percent of the product revenue. If multiple patents are involved, then the *total* still would be no more than X percent. X is simply divided up among the patent holders.
There is too much all-or-nothing problems and out-of-the-woodwork surprises right now. If you know that the total will be no more than X percent no matter what, then you are more likely to take the risk. There is too much "patent paralsys" right now.
Table-ized A.I.
Quick overview.
1. Pharmaceutical companies have big ties into our government, controlling legislation.
2. Pharmaceutical companies can patent receptors which blocks other companies to interact with those receptors.
3. The FDA has limited manpower, which means less drugs tested.
4. Knowledge which researchers shared freely, is now corporate information, and locked away.
5. Pharmaceutical companies are holding licenses. Screwing the public on new drug treatments from other corporations.
And my favorite.
6. breweries-and-distilleries index are up 25 percent; shares in the pharmaceuticals index, meanwhile, are down 25 percent.
I am not joking - there must be loads of chemists and doctors out there who could make it work.
They could do research, and let drug companies make a small profit out of the resulting product - after all, the drug companies wouldn't have had to pay directly for the research - in return for the drug companies agreeing to do research such as clinical trials, which has to be government monitored. The governments could give large tax breaks for the drug companies supporting the successful drugs, which would urge them to take it seriously, not just sit back and think, 'ah, we can make some residual money on this'. There should be big bucks for a cure for cancer, and honors for the sponsors, and open source scientists, who lets face it, would be able to get a job just about anywhere if they were credited in that way.
For crying out loud, people are dying. The open source model could really do some good here.
Is this guy supposed to be telling us something we don't already know?
We all know damn well that no company in any industry is concerned about their consumers/users and the public good first. Companies are only concerned with the bottom line; those that aren't go out of business. A companies first goal is to make money, and the public good, consumers, users, the environment, anything, is only secondary and considered in regard to how it affects the bottom line.
This isn't something companies should necessarily be chastized for. Their first obligation by the law is to maximize profit for their shareholders while obeying the law. But some companies use illegal, immoral, or unethical means.
What this means is that you can't trust anything a company tells you. A company's position on social issues is never consistent and will always vary, depending on what will benefit that company the most. In "The Future of Ideas," Lessig noted that AT&T's position on whether or not cable lines should be open changed when from "open access" to "no way" when it became a large owner of them.
That said, some industries have engaged in reprehensable behavior (biotech, software, etc), while others have no (referring here to non-technological industries, such as clothes industry).
In particular, the biotech industry has:
(1) Biopirated (stolen) treatments and cures for diseases from indigenous peoples around the world, patented those ideas, then turned around and charged indigenous peoples for the cures they themselves created.
(2) (In conjunction with the software industry) extended patent rights and duration beyond all reasonable grounds. Companies can patent things for which they do not even know what they do. They can also receive patents on very basic and primitive things which are no-where near leading to a drug, but which will be needed to be used in the research necessary to product a drug (upstream patents). Upstream patents should be retroactively eliminated (retroactive elimination is OK in this case because the gov't had no right to create them in the first place). Only downstream patents on a specific drug should be allowed; minor modifications to the drug should not result in a new patent. The standard for obtaining a patent needs to be dramatically raised. Every minor and trivial adaptation of an existing drug does not deserve a patent. Furthermore, patents on downstream drug products should not apply to basic research. Universities, governments, and companies should be able to obtain the drug in question for research purposes at the cost of production, without licensing hindrances.
(3) Denied people much-needed cures/treatments to further their bottom line. Companies have prevented patients from being treated so that they can get royalties on drugs. Lets save some scorn for the Universities too, which are recently becoming nothing more than corporations who also teach and train. My own University of Rochester was granted a patent to cox-2 inhibitors, which are used in Celebrex's anti-arthritis drug. The University received a patent recently (after Celebrex created the drug) and then filed lawsuite against Celebrex, potentially stopping those suffering from arthritis from getting the drug. While my respect is due to those at the UOR who researched cox-2, that research was done using public grants (which come out of the taxpayers pocket) and using the tuitions of students. It should be put in the public domain.
(4) Denying people in third world countries cures. Rather than allowing companies in third-world countries to make generic drugs and sell them cheaply (saving millions of people's lives), drug companies have tried to prevent such. Blinded by their greed, they have failed to realize that you can't squeeze water from a rock. Perhaps drug companies would be happy if people in the third world started selling them their body parts in exchange for drugs.
(5) Used propaganda to create the illusion that certain illnesses exist which in fact don't, boosting the sales of marginally useful drugs.
(6) Spent far far more money on lawyers, public relations, lobbying, and paying greedy executives than on actually doing research to find cures (not that any company is researching cures anyways).
I could go on and on.
The point is this patent non-sense has to stop. Its a problem everywhere, but most importantly in the biotech industry where its a problem that get people killed by preventing people from being treated, or preventing cures from being researched. As harmful as copyrights are given the fact that their scope is overly broad and their duration overly long, patents are an even bigger problem for the same excesses.
Initial innovation needs to be followed by subsequent innovation, sequential innovation; patents, in their current state, prevent this. I have a simple solution for this:
(1) Reduce the duration of patents. 10 years instead of 20.
(2) Force patent-owners to license patented drugs to those who wish to incorporate them into a product to be sold. A forced license of 50% of the profit from the venture going to the licenser is fine.
(3) Force patent-owners to license patent drugs to anyone for research purposes under a minimally restrictive license. The drug should be provided (for research purposes) at the cost of production, and the only limitation to the license to use it is that the drug itself cannot be sold.
(4) Prevent drug companies from strategic licensing. A company sitting on a patent while research is done based off of that patent and mentioning nothing, then when a product is made, suing for royalties, should be prohibited. (I'm referring here to the same thing happening in the drug industry [i.e., with cox-2] that happened with MP3's).
(5) Retain a much stricter patent-granting scheme. Patents should not be granted for things which aren't really innovative. Currently, patents are granted on every minor modification of an existing drug.
(6) Hold a strong stance on patent nullification of patents ill-gotten. Patents should not be granted for drugs obtained via the results of biopiracy. Those which are discovered to have been obtained from that should in invalidated. Similarly, patents should not be granted on things which were previously invented by others. Should such happen, the patent should be invalidated.
(7) Punish companies for inappropriate patent behavior. If a compoany inappropriately attempts to use its patents to halt, or obtain patents by biopiracy, etc, it should lose all of its patent rights.
(8) Prevent universities for filing for patents, or if they do, require them license the patents under a "patent-left" license. Universities obtain their money for research from the public -- from government grants, funded by the taxpayers, or from students tuitions (also basically the public). Thus, their discoveries and/or inventions should either be in the public domain or patent lefted; i.e., a license corresponding to that of the GPL -- any discoveries/inventions using this patent must either be put in the public domain or licensed under this license, which allows unabridged access.
It is ever-important that we put these kind of restrictions on drug companies (and any technology companies). They will not govern themselves and act morally; indeed, it would be double standard to expect them to do so, since our laws require that they use any and all legal means to maximize profit for their shareholders. Thus, we need to make laws which prevent this kind of nonsense.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Although, If you did come up with a cure for the common cold or the flu, you would make billions of dollars, since most people I know get both more than once.
Celbrities, Pharmaceutical Researchers Urge House to Reject Patent Legislation that Would Harm Patients
So why isn't there a reward system for cure research? Have people, the government, or better yet governments put up a sum of money to the person, or group of people that create a verifiable cure. Stick it into something guaranteed and let the pot grow. Would drug companies work to cure aids if there was a few trillion dollars at stake?
So please, bleeding hearts, before you start attacking pharmas for their greed and rapaciousness, consider why it is that you work as software developer making $60K+ rather than an inner-city school teacher making only $30K but doing something more socially useful.
The article also seems to avoid discussing:
1. the rigorous standards and testing imposed by the FDA (which are a GOOD thing, but make truly innnovative drugs much more difficult for companies to gain clearance to manufacture), and
2. frivolous lawsuits like the current drug-dilution suit being brought against a major manufacturer. A pharmacist is accused of diluting the company's medications and thereby lining his own pockets. The company accused of compliance has no reason for it; they actually LOST profits through the pharmacist's actions. The legal eagles are going for where the big money is, but such situations waste time and resources that could be better spent on research.
I have a genetic indicator for hereditary hemochromatosis, or iron overload. Basically, this means I'm at a higher risk to develop HH, which can cause iron to build up my body. The excess iron, over time, kills off your liver, gives you heart disease, and basically makes your life hell.
However, there has been very little research on the illness, even though it is one of the most common genetic disorders found in Americans. Why? Because Bristol Myers Squibb owns the patent on the genetic test to find that gene sequence, and charges labs to use the test, or do anything at all with that genetic sequence. Most labs can't afford the fee, nor can they afford the legal battle if they ignore BM.
We bust our hump trying to cure everything from osteoporosis to AIDS and you sit there smugly alleging that we're either holding back cures or not trying to make them? You're a fool. Everyone I work with spends every minute of the work day and most of our weekends trying to develop treatments AND CURES for ungrateful dickheads like you. And we don't do it for the money, which pays the bills but isn't that great, trust me.
So you are telling me that upper management would NEVER bury an R&D breakthrough that upper mangement thought would hurt their profits?
I bet that breakthrough would get "lost" really quick.
I'm not belittling you, or your coworkers, but when the people who only see numbers start making decisions the bottom line is everything.
Murphy was an optimist.