Greedy Trial Lawyer
Drug Manufacturers' Addiction To Patents
Category: Seeing Clearly Now
Does the drug industry have an addiction problem because of its reliance on the U.S. patent system?
Derek Lowe, In The Pipeline, posts:
Down With Patents, Eh?I see that Against Intellectual Monopoly by Michele Boldrin and David Levine is about to be released. This is a provocative work, parts of which have appeared in articles over the last couple of years. The first few chapters are available online (still with some typos, I've noticed).
What makes this a bomb-throwing sort of book, from the perspective of a drug company researcher like me, is that the authors recommend abolishing the patent system as we know it. They have a chapter (PDF) on the drug industry specifically, as you'd expect. Looking it over, I find it a peculiar mix of compelling argument and things that make me hold my head and moan.
Derek's post includes the web address of the excerpts from the Boldrin and David book draft. This may be what is giving Derek the headache.
Therefore, it is reasonable to ask - how strong is the case for patents in pharmaceuticals? If the case is strong, perhaps we need to examine other industries to see if the case for patents might also be strong in those industries. In fact, we shall see that the case for patents in pharmaceuticals is weak - and so, apparently, even under the most favorable circumstances patents are not good for society, for consumers, or in this case, for sick people. Patents are good for monopolists, but that much we knew already.
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.greedytriallawyer.com/admin/mt-tb.cgi/182
Comments
This site rule the world! Keep fighting
Posted by: Nyqhbzuc at December 6, 2006 08:35 AM