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a_cubedClaim by pharmaceutical companies:
Allowing cheap generic production of new drugs for use in the developing world would destroy their ability to do research and development by removing their income stream, because of grey imports back from those countries into the developed world where their patent runs.
Thoughts:
Assuming this is the honest argument, and it isn't just the more politically acceptable argument than "we demand maximum profit, even if this means that lots of people in developing countries suffer and die", then the following thought occurs:
Is the grey import problem principally a factor of the lack of a proper government funded health system in the US? In the UK, for instance, if we agree to honour global pharma patents then the NHS will not be allowed to source prescription drugs from the third world. Since the vast majority of patented drugs in the UK are prescribed by the NHS, this should be sufficient protection of the income stream of pharma companies - anything else would be beyond the point of diminishing returns at the margins. In most other developed countries, so far as I'm aware, there is not a substantial underclass of people without access to necessary drugs.
So, is this a factor in the skewing of the worldwide debate on pharma patent enforcement?
Allowing cheap generic production of new drugs for use in the developing world would destroy their ability to do research and development by removing their income stream, because of grey imports back from those countries into the developed world where their patent runs.
Thoughts:
Assuming this is the honest argument, and it isn't just the more politically acceptable argument than "we demand maximum profit, even if this means that lots of people in developing countries suffer and die", then the following thought occurs:
Is the grey import problem principally a factor of the lack of a proper government funded health system in the US? In the UK, for instance, if we agree to honour global pharma patents then the NHS will not be allowed to source prescription drugs from the third world. Since the vast majority of patented drugs in the UK are prescribed by the NHS, this should be sufficient protection of the income stream of pharma companies - anything else would be beyond the point of diminishing returns at the margins. In most other developed countries, so far as I'm aware, there is not a substantial underclass of people without access to necessary drugs.
So, is this a factor in the skewing of the worldwide debate on pharma patent enforcement?
