AIDS Drug Patent Revoked In US

eldavojohn writes "Doctors Without Borders is reporting that four patents for tenofovir disoproxil fumarate, a key AIDS/HIV drug, have been revoked on grounds of prior art. This is potentially good news for India & Brazil who need this drug to be cheap; if the US action leads to the patent being rejected in these countries, competition could drastically lower prices. But the ruling bad news for Gilead Sciences. The company has vowed to appeal. We discussed this drug before."

Comments

Your taxes do pay for the research

[NIckGorton]

Your taxes already do pay for research - through NIH grants, tax breaks for pharmaceutical companies, and then after the drug is almost fully developed the government often gives the patent to an industry 'partner' to bring to market. A good example is AZT, the first ever anti-HIV medicine. The lion's share of the cost for developing AZT was paid by our tax dollars. Then Glaxo-Wellcome stepped in for the last bit and viola, they have an exclusive right to sell a life saving drug for whatever the market will bear.

From Physicians for a National Health Program's website: "15. Taxpayers pay for most research costs, and many clinical trials as well. In 2000, for example, industry spent 18% of its $13 billion for R&D on basic research, or $2.3 billion in gross costs (National Science Foundation 2003). All of that money was subsidized by taxpayers through deductions and tax credits. Taxpayers also paid for all $18 billion in NIH funds, as well as for R&D funds in the Department of Defense and other public budgets. Most of that money went for basic research to discover breakthrough drugs, and public money also supports more than 5000 clinical trials (Bassand, Martin, Ryden et al. 2002). Taxpayer contributions are similar in more recent years, only larger." http://www.pnhp.org/news/2004/february/will_lower_drug_pric.php

So they paid 2.3 billion (tax subsidized), and we kicked in 18 billion. Then they get to charge us for access to the drugs for which we paid 95% of the basic research costs.

Though you may say that PNHP is a bunch of hippies, so if you prefer a more grandfatherly source the AARP do a decent job too: http://www.aarp.org/bulletin/prescription/double_taxation.html

Of course that is the reason that while you may not trust the government, they could be a much better steward of medical research than market forces. Market based R&D is inherently morally corrupt. It can't be otherwise. If its not obvious because of the fact that more R&D is spent developing drugs to give octogenarians a hard-on and a full head of hair than to offer effective treatment for malaria that kills millions each year in the developing world, MSF gives a great summary of the reasons that market based R&D is wrong: http://www.accessmed-msf.org/main/medical-innovation/introduction-to-medical-innovation/what-is-wrong-with-r-d-today/

Though I do agree with you that at present I don't trust the government. Not that they do bad research... the NIH and the researchers they fund are amazing. But I don't trust the corrupt system that gives the breakthrough drugs that the government develops into the hands of private industry so that they can extort millions of Americans for the price that the 'market will bear' for drugs they may need to survive.

One thing, though...

[AnotherUsername]

When HIV and AIDS were first discovered, and the epidemic that was unleashed started, the life expectancy of the unfortunate recipient was about 10 - 15 years. Now, however, after only 10 years of drugs and healthcare being on the market, life expectancy is much, much better. How are these drugs making people's condition worse? Is living a worse fate than dying?

And you can't tell me that all those people who are now surviving the various types of cancer that would have died just 20 years ago is proof that people are being denied healthcare and drugs. People that would have died 20 years ago are now living full, happy lives. Well, not happy, that that's another story about how people were lied to 50 years ago about having flying cars now. On second thought, where are the flying cars...

But I digress. Seriously, for all of Big Pharma's flaws, they do help people. Medicines do cost a ton of money to research, develop, test, retest, go through FDA testing, test one more time for good measure, and finally release. Plus, after releasing the drug, more testing is done through the doctors prescribing it, as well as the company having to spend money to get the word out. Yes, advertising. It is part of it. The best wonder drug in the world won't work if nobody knows about it.

Plus, part of those high costs are for all the research on drugs that didn't work. Just because a drug is researched and millions spent on it doesn't mean it will ever get to market. One hiccup along the way can be enough to send the companies back to the drawing board. On the topic of this, costs are also raised when the company has to basically protect itself financially from when a drug reacts poorly with someone, they die, and the company is sued. Sure, it may have worked on 99,999 other people, but one wrongful death lawsuit can set a company back millions of dollars.

Last, but not least, when a drug doesn't work, it is not a complete loss. The company then knows what won't work. They can still salvage research from the drug, how it affected the virus/bacteria, and move on from there. Storage of these maybe-medicines can't be cheap, what with regulating everything from temperature and humidity to making sure that the computer backups of the backups are always up and running, because if these people lose files, it isn't just the courts they have to worry about, it is also the fact that people can die from lack of information. So their systems have to be top notch at all times. That isn't cheap.

Oh, and one last thing. As much as everyone demonizes Bill Gates, the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation does do a lot to help people. Just because his business practices weren't always on the up and up doesn't mean he's a total loss in the way of morality.

I know that I just lost half the support of Slashdot when I wrote that last comment. Oh well. Can't win them all.