Pharmaceutical Companies, Intellectual Property, and the Global Aids Epidemic

Economic: Globalization of the pharmaceutical industry is an exciting opportunity to have research and development done at cheaper prices in other countries. However, this could be a double edged sword for companies because it is easy for other countries, such as India, to produce generic versions of the drug in bulk.

Some pharmaceutical companies are feeling grief from a decline in research slump but the issues are more serious in reference to the United States intellectual property laws on which these same companies need to inflate their profits. Maybe the focus should be on an idea that came about several years ago. Give drug patents a shorter term of 15 years but don’t start the clock until the FDA approves the drug.

The high prices set by pharmaceutical companies for drugs allows the companies to continue researching, developing, and producing new drugs. As new diseases are discovered, new medications must be discovered in order to treat them.

This casebook concentrates on the negative effects that the pharmaceutical industry’s trade and production policies have on third world nations suffering from disease epidemics. My position is that pharmaceutical companies are not concerned with the health benefits of their drugs, but rather with the market that their drugs generate. I illustrate this notion by describing the trade policies that pharmaceutical companies influence and the pharmaceutical companies’ production policies which concentrate on producing life-style drugs rather than drugs that cure life-threatening diseases.

I personally feel that it is neither ethical nor unethical for a company to decline to sell a useful drug just because they can make more money marketing drugs that are more widely needed. It really is up to the company what drugs they want to sell however; if a drug is available that will help people and or cure disease, it should be made available and companies should sell it. From a business stand point I can understand why they would want to market only drugs that are more widely needed as it will make them more money however; by offering or selling drugs that are useful, they will eventually gain more recognition and that could lead to a competitive advantage.

Hello, Adrian! I definitely see your point about the “pharmaceutical companies [who] are practically free to do whatever they want with the manufacturing and selling their drugs.” What amazes me more is that they seem perfectly justifiable if viewed from the perspective of capitalism. I understand that pharmaceutical and the healthcare industries need to make a profit since it is also the way our economic system mobilizes people to provide for others. However, the absurd price tags on prescription drugs and the cost of healthcare today are way beyond the idea of capitalism. In my opinion, it is causing a fundamental inequality and dividing the rich and the poor. Sadly, the price of inequality is money. Money - because it buys you quality-prescription

In this paper I will be responding to an article by Richard Anderson, business reporter for the BBC NEWS, titled “Pharmaceutical Industry Gets High On Fat Profits.” In Anderson’s article, the most interesting topics are how some drugs can really help and even save lives, how pharmaceutical companies have been accused of some corruptions, and how there is controversy surrounding profiting of drug companies. Overall, I learned a great deal from this article.

The pharmaceutical industry should be profitable. It has produced new drugs and treatments, which have saved lives and improved the quality of life. However, at the moment this industry engages in monopolistic

By 2020 the pharmaceutical market is anticipated to more than double to US$1.3 trillion, with the E7 countries — Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia and Turkey — accounting around for one fifth of global pharmaceutical sales. Further, incidence of chronic conditions in the developing world will increasingly resemble those of the developed world.

Some of the major assumptions on the drug issues are that the company thought that the drug would not have adverse effects on the consumers. The reason is that it is a large corporation that has

The article notes that if the government buys the drugs for the country the prices will drop for the huge quantity of products ordered. The lecture rebuts this argument . He suggests that since the countries are poor the government is also poor. She elaborates on this by mentioning that the government is not capable of buying all the drugs needed because they do not have the necessary money to do

In August of 2003, the United States pharmaceutical industry dropped its resistance of the intellectual property rights provisions under World Trade Organizations to make general, low-cost antiviral drugs to developing countries that were facing increases in health emergencies. There are many factors for and against distributing drugs for free or at a low cost in developing countries. One disagreement would be the fact that even though there are epidemics and medical emergencies in other countries, there has yet to be a test or specific procedure to determine what institutes as a medical emergency. The advantages would include the United States being able to promote this approach to other countries and therefore create income if exported at a low cost. If countries were to give drugs away for free, it would hurt them because they would never see anything in return.

This process of delay by drug companies is called, “evergreening” and once again proves the point that money overrides a person’s quality of life or life in itself. Proven in 2013, pharmaceutical companies actually got the US Supreme Court to allow them to pay these generic drug companies in order to delay the release of certain generic medications for some time, after the patent for medication expires. This allows pharmaceutical companies more time to profit off of their name brand medications (Belk). In fact, pharmaceutical companies paid the FDA around $712 million dollars in 2013 for prescription drugs user fees which in return helped the FDA in the process of approving drugs for sale and distribution in the US

Although, we have made significant strides in research and development for HIV medication, pharmaceutical companies have yet to find a way to lower the cost of medication. The average cost of meds in the United States for HIV positive person is $2,500 a month with an average cost of $25,000 a year. As a result, thousands of infected Americans are left everyday suffering through the pain of not knowing whether or not their name will be selected from a government assistance list. The Aids Drug Assistance Program, helps those infected with HIV secure free medication with the help of the government. Unfortunately there are terms associated with the program. The most displeasing is the fact that a

Few know the impact that patents have on the pharmaceutical industry development. The evolution of this industry is closely linked with the evolution of patent system (Salazar, nd.). Lehman (2003) explains in a simple way the definition of patents. According to him, patent is the property right that the creator has over his creation, if it is new, useful and not obvious. The reason for the existence of this protection is to safeguard products from being copied without compensation for the author or inventor. Since the adoption of intellectual property law in the realm of the chemical and pharmaceutical industry, the process of innovation of treatments and creation of drugs have been galvanised (ibid.). However, if on the one hand it brings