If you believe that drug prices are so high because of R & D, Big Pharma has done their job. And they're going to be in your pocket for a long, long time.
If you believe that drug prices are so high because of R & D, Big
Pharma has done their job. And they're going to be in your pocket for a
long, long time.
…
Article comments
76 - Roger
Oddly, Glaxo-SmithKline has been running a TV ad justifing the high cost of research. As far as patents, Schering-Plough the makers of Claritin and Clarinex had the Ace in the hole.
As soon as Claritin became available over the counter they introduced Clarinex. Clarinex(desloratadine 5mg) when metabolized in the body is the exact equivalent as 10mg loratadine (Claritin). Not only are they still making money on Claritin the people who's insurance was paying for it is now paying for Clarinex. The exact same thing. Pretty damn clever with sevaral more years of patent on Clarinex.
77 - Patrick
Not sure if this forum is dead, but one point about pharma taking advantage of research done by the NIH.
Few of the biomedical products that federal agencies most commonly buy
appear to incorporate federally funded inventions. In 2001 the government
had licensing rights in only 6 brand name drugs associated with the top 100
pharmaceuticals that VA procured and in 4 brand name drugs associated
with the top 100 pharmaceuticals that DOD dispensed. GAO was unable to
determine the extent to which the government had rights to other types of
biomedical products because there are no databases showing the underlying
patents for most of these products and such products may incorporate
numerous components that might not be covered by identifiable patents.
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d03536.pdf