Monday, June 16, 2008
Article #4 from Volume 1, Issue 4: Your Media, Your Human Right
“Of Pharmaceuticals and Patents”
Nari Corley-Wheeler
Intellectual property rights are assigned to original creations with implications that can alter the quality of one’s life and choices. In terms of pharmaceutical companies, intellectual property rights are applied in the form of patents. According to the US Food and Drug Administration, patents are protections placed on new products entering the market which prohibit the release of generic drugs by granting the original producers sole selling rights while the patent is active.
Once the patents expire, which take on average twenty years, generic drug manufacturers can apply to the FDA for entry into the market. Large pharmaceutical companies instantly have easier access to the brand name drug makers.
As former acquisitions, entry in the New York Stock Exchange and mergence’s with other companies has allowed major pharmaceuticals to profit enough to afford the costly research companies that discover the drugs first. These pharmaceutical companies require patents in order to turn a profit, as the patents work to simultaneously increase market drug prices and eliminate generic drugs from competition.
The difference between generic and brand name drugs is simply this: patents ensure that the company purchasing the developed drug can – in a sense – reimburse the research, development, marketing, and promotional costs involved in creating a new drug.
Generic drugs are not obligated to the costs of development like their brand name counterparts, allowing them to be cheap but delayed upon entering the market. Otherwise brand name and generic drugs are identical without the patents; marked by the same active ingredients, meeting the same FDA guidelines, containing equal dosage and strengths, these drugs are identical sans their price tag.
The market-driven world we live in enables pharmaceutical companies, researchers, and manufacturers to forget that the drugs being created are for the service and benefit of the consumer. Hindering the generic drugs from entering the market because research and pharmaceutical companies need to cover their expenses seems like a reasonable excuse, but in actuality is a strategy for large companies to spin higher profits.
Pharmaceutical companies profit considerably without patents, interestingly because at any given time any one of the 300 million American consumers could become ill and require medication. With a huge consumer base to rely upon, pharmaceutical companies will never lack for business.
Heeding to the patent-protected pharmaceutical companies remain innumerable American households buried in financial debt continually paying off the fees to purchase heart disease medication, insulin treatment, or critical life-saving prescription medication. Intellectual property rights have become a source of woes hurting individuals that cannot afford the unsubsidized costs of their medication that insurance cannot consistently cover.
High costs for prescription medicine bores numerous implications now and, in the future, exponentially more as the American demographics shift. Concerns regarding baby boomers approaching their 60s and 70s will arise as increased demand for heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, osteoporosis, and Alzheimer’s medication will soar.
Additionally, the rates of surgical procedures – nearly 50 million annually – is only climbing due to increased demands for cosmetic, gastric by-pass, heart disease, and cancer-related surgeries. Post-surgery prescription medication like painkillers, blood thinning medication, and cancer-related medication bear high costs.
HIV/AIDS patients are paying tens of thousands of dollars each year for prescription drug cocktails and additional anti-depressants and anti-psychotics to manage psychological impairments.
Admitting generic drugs to the market upon manufacturing is one of the most immediate ways to relieve patients of the incremental costs associated with prescription medication. Allowing brand name drugs to dominate the pharmaceutical market forces growing numbers of consumers to bury themselves in financial debt and to remain extremely dependent on the prescribed drug available regardless its price.
Nari Corley-Wheeler
Intellectual property rights are assigned to original creations with implications that can alter the quality of one’s life and choices. In terms of pharmaceutical companies, intellectual property rights are applied in the form of patents. According to the US Food and Drug Administration, patents are protections placed on new products entering the market which prohibit the release of generic drugs by granting the original producers sole selling rights while the patent is active.
Once the patents expire, which take on average twenty years, generic drug manufacturers can apply to the FDA for entry into the market. Large pharmaceutical companies instantly have easier access to the brand name drug makers.
As former acquisitions, entry in the New York Stock Exchange and mergence’s with other companies has allowed major pharmaceuticals to profit enough to afford the costly research companies that discover the drugs first. These pharmaceutical companies require patents in order to turn a profit, as the patents work to simultaneously increase market drug prices and eliminate generic drugs from competition.
The difference between generic and brand name drugs is simply this: patents ensure that the company purchasing the developed drug can – in a sense – reimburse the research, development, marketing, and promotional costs involved in creating a new drug.
Generic drugs are not obligated to the costs of development like their brand name counterparts, allowing them to be cheap but delayed upon entering the market. Otherwise brand name and generic drugs are identical without the patents; marked by the same active ingredients, meeting the same FDA guidelines, containing equal dosage and strengths, these drugs are identical sans their price tag.
The market-driven world we live in enables pharmaceutical companies, researchers, and manufacturers to forget that the drugs being created are for the service and benefit of the consumer. Hindering the generic drugs from entering the market because research and pharmaceutical companies need to cover their expenses seems like a reasonable excuse, but in actuality is a strategy for large companies to spin higher profits.
Pharmaceutical companies profit considerably without patents, interestingly because at any given time any one of the 300 million American consumers could become ill and require medication. With a huge consumer base to rely upon, pharmaceutical companies will never lack for business.
Heeding to the patent-protected pharmaceutical companies remain innumerable American households buried in financial debt continually paying off the fees to purchase heart disease medication, insulin treatment, or critical life-saving prescription medication. Intellectual property rights have become a source of woes hurting individuals that cannot afford the unsubsidized costs of their medication that insurance cannot consistently cover.
High costs for prescription medicine bores numerous implications now and, in the future, exponentially more as the American demographics shift. Concerns regarding baby boomers approaching their 60s and 70s will arise as increased demand for heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, osteoporosis, and Alzheimer’s medication will soar.
Additionally, the rates of surgical procedures – nearly 50 million annually – is only climbing due to increased demands for cosmetic, gastric by-pass, heart disease, and cancer-related surgeries. Post-surgery prescription medication like painkillers, blood thinning medication, and cancer-related medication bear high costs.
HIV/AIDS patients are paying tens of thousands of dollars each year for prescription drug cocktails and additional anti-depressants and anti-psychotics to manage psychological impairments.
Admitting generic drugs to the market upon manufacturing is one of the most immediate ways to relieve patients of the incremental costs associated with prescription medication. Allowing brand name drugs to dominate the pharmaceutical market forces growing numbers of consumers to bury themselves in financial debt and to remain extremely dependent on the prescribed drug available regardless its price.
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Labels: AIDS, HIV, human rights, nari corley-wheeler, newsletter, patents, pharmaceuticals, university of washington, uwjhr
Labels: AIDS, HIV, human rights, nari corley-wheeler, newsletter, patents, pharmaceuticals, university of washington, uwjhr
