Report Says Patents Prevent New Drugs

An anonymous reader writes "Current orthodoxy claims patents encourage innovation, by allowing developers to enjoy profitable monopolies on their inventions which in turn inspire them to create new inventions. A new report by the non-partisan General Accounting Office suggests that this orthodoxy is wrong — at least when drug companies are involved. According to the report, existing patent law allows drug companies to patent, and make substantial profits off of, "new" drugs which differ little from existing medicines. Given high profit margins on very minor innovations, the report argues that drug companies have little incentive to produce innovative new drugs. In other words, current patent law actually discourages drug companies from producing new medicines. Responding to the report, Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) released a strongly worded statement suggesting that a legislative response will be forthcoming. "The findings in this new GAO report," said Senator Durbin, "raise serious questions about the pharmaceutical industry claims that there is a connection between new drug development and the soaring price of drugs already on the market. Most troubling is the notion that pharmaceutical industry profits are coming at the expense of consumers in the form of higher prices and fewer new drugs.""

Comments

Claritin vs. Clarinex

[Cutie Pi]

One example is Claritin vs. Clarinex. (Both are anti-histamines that don't cause drowsiness in most people). Claritin was a cash cow for Schering-Plough whose patent expired a few years ago. It used to be prescription-only and the cost used was around $1 a pill. Now you can buy 300-ct bottles over-the-counter at CostCo for ~ $10.00.

Enter Clarinex, which Schering claims is certified for both indoor and outdoor allergies. Once again, it's a prescription-only medication with high prices. The punch line: Clarinex is exactly the same drug as Claritin after Claritin passes through your liver once. There are tons of examples like this, where drug companies change the chemical formulation only slightly, usually in inactive places of the molecule (i.e. the "business end" that interacts with the target enzymes is unchanged). Why new formulations like this are granted patents is beyond me.

Re:Exaggeration

[sinclair44]

Agreed, and another problem with that is the change has only to be minimal even as little as changing the purpose and/or dosage of a drug.

Exactly. I'm a clerk in a pharmacy and on a particularly non-busy night we were all talking with the pharmacist about this sort of thing. He gave an example of some company which came out with Drug X (can't remember which one). As the patent on Drug X was about to expire, they created "Drug X Gel Capsule... better than before!!!" Of course, doctors, not really knowing, started prescribing the new X Gel Capsule, which had a new patent and thus no generic (and by this point, the original X's patent had expired and had cheaper generics).

Well, the pharmacist pulled out one of the new X Gel Capsules. Guess what it was? Just the original Drug X encased in a gel cap. That's it. A regular pill in a gel cap.