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Important context, and if you didn't RTFA: India recognizes patents just like anywhere else. What they don't recognize is when drug makers trivially re-formula
by lawnchair_larry 14y ago
Important context, and if you didn't RTFA:
India recognizes patents just like anywhere else. What they don't recognize is when drug makers trivially re-formulate their drug upon patent expiration in such a way that the old medicine cannot be made generically without also infringing on the new patent. India called BS on that, and rightfully so. Now millions of people in India don't have to die because even though a drug company made several multiples on their investment already, billions in exclusive profits per year still isn't enough.
Edited to add: This is informally called "Evergreening". I'm not an expert in that field but you can read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreening http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreening and linked sources.
In this case, they wanted to charge Indians $2600/month, and the generic is $175/month. If you have this condition and do not take this drug, you die.
- hmottestad 14y agoPerfect. The article kinda hinted on this but didn't make it clear. So all those generic versions could have disappeared from the market if they had gotten the patent. This move by Novartis makes them seem very evil (not for wanting to make money, but for actually attempting to kill people who couldn't afford their drug) Key people at Novartis (from wikipedia): - Daniel Vasella (Chairman) - Joseph Jimenez (CEO) I wouldn't hire these people. And it's a pity they will never experience not being able to afford a 10 year old drug that could save their lives.
- gknoy 14y agoThat's a pretty roundabout way of saying "It's a pity they won't die a painful death".
- hmottestad 14y agoThere is no patent on morphin :P
- akandiah 14y ago> drug makers trivially re-formulate their drug upon patent expiration in such a way that the old medicine cannot be made generically without also infringing on the new patent This seems to happen in the pharmaceutical industry too often. Not only this, drug companies also inflate the pricing on the older medication so that people will switch to the newer variety.
- icebraining 14y agoNot only this, drug companies also inflate the pricing on the older medication so that people will switch to the newer variety. Why don't they just stop producing the old?
- philhippus 14y agoBecause some will still buy the old at the inflated price.
- 3825 14y agoI think this is called price discrimination[1]. Joel wrote a good article on this topic called Camels and Rubber Duckies[2]. Here is a quote: >You see, by setting the price at $220, we managed to sell, let's say, 233 copies of the software, at a total profit of $43,105, which is all good and fine, but something is distracting me: all those people who were all ready to pay more, like those 12 fine souls who would have paid a full $399, and yet, we're only charging them $220 just like everyone else! >The difference between $399 and $220, i.e., $179, is called consumer surplus. It's the extra value that those rich consumers got from their purchase that they would have been perfectly happy to do without. >It's sort of like if you were all set to buy that new merino wool sweater, and you thought it was going to cost $70, which is well worth it, and when you got to Banana Republic it was on sale for only $50! Now you have an extra $20 in found money that you would have been perfectly happy to give to the Banana Republicans! [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination [2]: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckies.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckie...
- jkimmel 14y agoAs an aside, the evergreening process has taken on frightening new faces in recent years. Drugs have been repatented with the same formula for 'new' purposes. Case in point is BiDil, an active ingredient repatented for race-specific use in African-Americans without alteration to a previously patented drug formula (the case of repatenting is in and of itself an interesting study, many in the field contest the trials that validated the repatenting as well as the concept of a race-specific drug, as there is no drug-relavent biological basis for race.) [1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isosorbide_dinitrate/hydralazine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isosorbide_dinitrate/hydralazin... (BiDil) [2] - http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa042934 http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa042934
- refurb 14y agoIt's such an outrageous claim that drugs may have different impacts for different races that the FDA had no problem approving it.
- anoncow 14y agoDifferent races, ethnicities and people differ in subtle ways. People metabolize different molecules differently. However that still is no excuse to repatent a drug.
- malandrew 14y agoI agree, but the correct approach is more akin to feature detection in web browsers than user agent detection. i.e. Check for the presence of a disorder like sickle cell anemia than checking the ethnicity and inferring the probability that such a condition exists.
- bconway 14y agoSome drugs do have different impacts on different races. Science is rarely politically correct (probably a good thing).
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- nhebb 14y agoFrom what I understand, this case wasn't just about evergreening. When Prilosec was evergreened, the old formulation became available as Prilosec OTC. I don't know all the details beyond this article, but apparently in this case, Novartis wasn't just seeking a new patent on Glivec - they were also taking steps to make it harder for the generic version to be produced. The evergreening of Prilosec in the US was more of a marketing ploy, whereas the Novartis case seems much more insidious.
- Raz0rblade 14y agoRead about evergreening first if you dont understand it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreening http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreening
- mtgx 14y agoDoesn't that happen in US, too?
- Alex3917 14y agoYes, all the time. A good example is claritin. IIRC when the patents for claritin expired, the drug makers patented the metabolite, which they called clarinex. Then they declared that all generic versions of claritin were illegal, because they become clarinex in the body when swallowed.
- twoodfin 14y agoAnd yet somehow I can buy generic Claritin for pennies a pill, so somehow it must have worked out.
- Alex3917 14y agoIncorrect. It took several years to resolve, over which time the con artists at Schering-Plough (now Merck) stole several billion dollars from consumers, none of which has ever been reimbursed.
- twoodfin 14y agoSeveral billion dollars isn't really that much money in consumer terms. American consumers spend something like a billion dollars on scented candles each year. Besides, it doesn't seem to me like there was much of a delay at all in getting generic loratadine to consumers: http://www.nj.com/news/stories/0827_claritin.html http://www.nj.com/news/stories/0827_claritin.html The patent expired in December 2002 and Geneva/Novartis had first-challenger exclusivity for 6 months. By August 2003, only a month or so later, the lawsuit was decided and the floodgates opened.
- joering2 14y agoInsane the capitalism world we living in. Now you can sit down for hours and rightfully argue with someone whether big pharma company is saving more live than killing.
- archangel_one 14y agoWhy is it insane that you can argue that? If it were cut-and-dried that they were killing many people and providing no benefit, something would likely have been done about it by now. As it is, they exist in a grey area with plenty of room for argument, but I don't think that makes it an insane situation on its own.
- nova 14y agoWhat kind of capitalism are you talking about? Patents are government-granted monopolies. Nothing further from free markets.
- rayiner 14y agoPatents are government granted monopolies in the same way any other property right is a government granted monopoly. Propertizing things so they can be traded in a market is a crucial aspect of what makes capitalism work. Looking at it another why: why are patents on land, which grant people property rights over land that they did not create, somehow fundamental to capitalism, while patents on new drugs, which grant people property rights over formulas they did create, are anathema to capitalism?
- lake99 14y agoLand is a resource. If I claim exclusive use of a piece of land, no one else can use that land as they wish. Inventions are NOT like that. Comparing patents and land, the way you have, leads to a bizarre form of capitalism. "Propertizing things" is, again, a wrong way of looking at it: a patent is not a "thing" or even a resource. Looking at things through in your "propertizing things" manner, why can't laws and regulations be "propertized" too, bought and sold to create bizarro capitalism?
- JumpCrisscross 14y agoA point of contention was the triviality of the change and thus the logic of starting the clock on the original formulation. “Successive Indian courts have ruled that Glivec, also known as imatinib, was ineligible for a patent because it was a so-called salt – a subtly modified version of a related compound that had been previously patented. Novartis has challenged the interpretation. Mr Herrling – formerly Novartis’s head of research and development – said that the original form of the drug was too unstable and unsafe ever to be tested in humans, and it was the 'salt' version that was ultimately approved for human use worldwide" [1] Note that Novartis threatened, yesterday, “to stop supplies of new medicines to India if the country’s top court refuses on Monday to grant a patent for Glivec, its cancer drug.” [1] http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/c377e20a-99eb-11e2-83ca-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2PBuFSB5F http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/c377e20a-99eb-11e2-83ca-00144...
- DannyBee 14y agoIt's not at all clear why Mr Herrling's point is relevant at all. It comes out to "we patented something and prevented others from doing anything related due to the patent, but it turned out we couldn't sell that version". This seems like "tough shit", wait to patent a version that works, you got the benefit of the patent.
- kamaal 14y ago>>Note that Novartis threatened, yesterday, “to stop supplies of new medicines to India if the country’s top court refuses on Monday to grant a patent for Glivec, its cancer drug.” Trust me as an Indian I can tell you these supreme court rulings are pretty much a engraving on the stone which nobody apart from the parliament of India can erase. What this basically means is the supreme court ruling stands final without any change. Will be interesting to see how Novartis responds. Last time our country faced these situations(sanctions etc) we made attempts to not depend on others and be self sufficient. The net result is it has been beneficial to us and disastrous to companies in the west[Read: Growth of IT industry, space research, defense self sufficiency]. If Novartis decides to take these extortion tactics. The Government of India might as well invest heavily on pharmaceutical research, and come out with some real alternatives and then compete with their western counterparts globally. A lot of people will suffer, but this is the likely outcome I see, Given the history.
- pasbesoin 14y agoThere are also reported cases (not direct statements by the firms, but independent analyses) of pharmaceutical brands purchasing or paying generic producers to prevent a generic from coming or remaining online and competing. (Apparently, in some cases the number of and potential for generic producers is limited enough to make this cost effective for the pharmaceutical brand.) These firms have been granted limited monopolies in return for their contribution to the public good. Apparently, this is not enough for them. As a member of the public, I'm disinclined to offer them anything further, and rather in favor of re-evaluation this cost/benefit relationship with the suspicion that thorough independent analysis may well indicate the public should "claw back" more of this monopoly benefit we've been granting. Patents are a social convention. Not an inherent law. Society is, with sufficient will, free to re-evaluation them. Just as "public domain" may and does override private ownership for cases demonstrating sufficient benefit to the public good. (Not that imposition of "public domain" property seizure isn't its own nest of contention and problems. But as an example of another domain where this is already accepted law.)
- pinaceae 14y agoright, India recognizes patents just like anywhere else. which is why all big pharma-cos get their patents denied, pure coincidence. especially as Indian generics are a big business spreading into Europe and US. just compare to China(!) of all places. not even the Chinese government, not exactly opposed to copy and paste, is pulling these stunts.