3 ms·

> Explicit (costly) patents can remain in place to secure industrial-grade research processes I keep reading about big companies i) developing very similar dru

• mchusma 1mo ago
  The government could always pay for results too, like $10B for something that does this. I don’t love it either and am not positive it is better than patents.
• dtech 1mo ago
  The "me too" drug still need to go through an R&D, clinical trail and approval process, so combined with patents the exclusivity period is at least several years. Abolishing patents would completely remove the exclusivity period
• derektank 1mo ago
  That is a thing (though arguably there is still value in the reformulations). A good current example would be orally administered wegovy, which received an additional patent on top of semaglutide for combining the drug with an absorption enhancer. This is a genuine advancement, and did require clinical trials (not all patentable improvements do) but it is ultimately just a variation on an existing drug. That being said, the patent on semaglutide still expires at the same time and biosimilars (or generics in other cases) can be produced at that time using the injectable formulation (or a new alternative). This seems reasonable to me