Louisiana considers radical step to counter high drug prices: Federal intervention; Washington Post, July 3, 2017

Carolyn Y. Johnson, Washington Post; Louisiana considers radical step to counter high drug prices: Federal intervention

"Gilead, a company that has projected between $7.5 billion and $9 billion in sales for 2017 for its hepatitis C drugs, says federal intervention would threaten future progress.

In a statement, the company said the proposal “puts in jeopardy further medical innovation by undermining the patent system and de-incentivizing research and development.” Gilead said that the state’s predictions of the budget impact are unrealistic, based on the idea that the entire infected population could be screened, treated and connected to treatment in a year. Gilead offers states that do not restrict access to treatments deep discounts — less than $30,000 for a 12-week treatment...

Gee said that she is not wedded to one approach and that she simply thinks the equity and access problems that are an outgrowth of high drug prices need to be tackled. After receiving the expert panel’s recommendation, Gee put out the proposal for public comment and received 102, a majority of which were in favor of taking some action. She expects to make a decision soon about a strategy to try to eliminate hepatitis C in Louisiana."

'Could You Patent The Sun?'; New York Times, January 2017

Video, New York Times; 'Could You Patent The Sun?'

"Decades after Dr. Jonas Salk opposed patenting the polio vaccine, the pharmaceutical industry has changed. What does that mean for the development of innovative drugs and for people whose lives depend on them?"

Summer Project Turns Into Leukemia Testing Breakthrough; New York Times, 11/28/16

Donald G. McNeil Jr., New York Times; Summer Project Turns Into Leukemia Testing Breakthrough:

'Gleevec, which made almost $5 billion for Novartis last year, has been at the center of a long battle between pharmaceutical companies and activists fighting price increases. The drug cost about $26,000 per year in 2001, and Novartis repeatedly raised the price even as competitors emerged; early this year, it was more than $120,000.

Those who support broader access to medicines argue that poor countries should reject patents and make generic versions of leukemia drugs. In 2013, India’s highest court struck down Novartis’s patent application for Gleevec, opening the way for generics. They now cost about $400 a year in India and about $9,000 in Canada."

The Strange Case of Off-Patent Drug Price Gougers; Bloomberg, 9/9/16

Justin Fox, Bloomberg; The Strange Case of Off-Patent Drug Price Gougers:

"There’s a conflict at the heart of pharmaceutical pricing in the U.S.: On the one hand, it’s in the public’s interest for pharma companies to get a good return on the huge investments they often make in developing new drugs. On the other, it’s in the public’s interest to be able to afford those drugs.

We try to resolve this by granting companies temporary monopolies (aka patents) on the drugs they develop -- letting them effectively set the price unilaterally -- but then allowing competition from generic substitutes once the patents expire...

What’s going on, basically, is that a new breed of pharmaceutical company has emerged (Valeant is, or at least was, the archetype) that doesn’t develop drugs but identifies business opportunities in existing drugs --many of them with expired patents -- that the previous owners were too lazy or timid or decent to fully exploit. So they acquire them, and jack up the prices."

Lifting the Patent Barrier to New Drugs and Energy Sources; New York Times, 4/12/16

Eduardo Porter, New York Times; Lifting the Patent Barrier to New Drugs and Energy Sources:

"Malaria has preyed on humans for centuries. Hundreds of thousands of children die each year from the disease. Considering the market’s size, why haven’t pharmaceutical companies rushed to develop a vaccine against the deadly parasite that causes it?

The answer is easy: There is no money to be made from a vaccine for poor children who could not possibly pay for inoculation.

Last year, GlaxoSmithKline finally introduced the world’s first malaria vaccine for large pilot tests among African children. The move, however, is not an endorsement of the profit motive as a spur for innovation. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation picked up much of the tab. And Glaxo does not expect to make money on its investment.

The lack of interest of the pharmaceutical industry, which generates huge profits protected by a web of patents enforced around the world, raises an important question.

Do we need a different way to spur innovation and disseminate new technologies quickly around the world? Are patents, which reward inventors by providing them with a government-guaranteed monopoly over their inventions for many years, the best way to encourage new inventions?"