Pharmaceutical Pricing : The New Drug War

Critics have pointed a finger at the unethical use of intellectual property in the pharmaceutical industry claiming it is being used to set prices far above what those in third world countries can afford. Given that a good number of the raw material came from these regions, it is unethical to use intellectual property

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.

Improvements in health care and life sciences are an important source of gains in health and longevity globally. The development of innovative pharmaceutical products plays a critical role in ensuring these continued gains. To encourage the continued development of new drugs, economic incentives are essential. These incentives are principally provided through direct and indirect government funding, intellectual property laws, and other policies that favor innovation. Without such incentives, private corporations, which bring to market the vast majority of new drugs, would be less able to assume the risks and costs necessary to continue their research and development (R&D). In the United States, government action has focused on creating the environment that would best encourage further innovation and yield a constant flow of new and innovative medicines to the market. The goal has been to ensure that consumers would benefit both from technological breakthroughs and the competition that further innovation generates. The United States also relies on a strong generic pharmaceutical industry to create added competitive pressure to lower drug prices. Recent action by the Administration and Congress has accelerated the flow of generic medicines to the market for precisely that reason. By contrast, in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and

The branded pharmaceutical firms account for more than 50% of worldwide pharmaceutical sales. Thus they make huge profits. These profits can be used to fund hospitals in poor areas. This will not only give the firms respect but also a good recognition. Generic medicines are cheap and easily available. Though they may not be effective, but they serve the purpose for the poor. Some generic medicines may not give the desired results but the major diseases which occur among the poor people can be treated with generic medicines.

U.S. based companies hold rights to most of the world’s rights on new medicines and holds thousands of new products currently being developed. As of 2012, the industry helps support almost 3.4 million jobs in the U.S. economy. It is also one of the most heavily R&D based industries in the world. In the United States, the environment for pharmaceuticals is much friendlier than other countries around the world in terms of pricing ability and regulations. Both the Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology industries have experienced significant growth in the past year with year-over-year increases of 13.02% and 34.69% respectively. It is an even more striking when looking at the past five years considering both have beat out the S&P 500 with pharmaceuticals increasing an additional 31.44% and the biotechnology sector besting an astonishing 269.3% more return than the

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.

After watching the video, I have realized that intellectual rights protection is based on the foundation of R&D investment, which are also the building blocks of the pharmaceutical industry. There is adequate evidence to proof that intellectual rights in the form of trademarks and patents are very significant in the pharmaceutical industry as is compared to any other industry. This may be caused by the fact that copyrights on prescription drugs are a better effective measure for increasing the limitation costs than copyrights on other commodities. The value of copyright protection relies on the duration of exclusivity. Although the lifespan of copyrights is predetermined by international treaty at 20 years from the filing of the copyright application, the actual period between gaining market approval and patenting, the significance of the copyright is much less than 20 years.

This industry has monopolized drug distribution to sustain and control high cost of the brand name prescription drugs. These brand name drugs were covered under patent protections, which stipulate that only that pharmaceutical company awarded coverage can manufacture, market and eventually profit from that specific drug. As long as the patent protections exist, these drugs cannot be sold as generic brands by other companies. The regulations outlined in the PPACA, however, challenged these patents to allow a more competitive field, thus dropping the cost of drugs and sales of brand named prescriptions. This lowered the revenue of high cost drugs and opened accessibility for lower cost options. The PPACA continued to further impose regulations, even on biologic pharmaceutical products. These products, which are versions of the original biologic products “that have the same mechanism of action in the body and are used for the same clinical indication but are not identical to the original product (variously referred to as the reference, pioneer, or innovator product)” (Health Policy Brief, 2013, para 5).  The reform also included the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act (BPCIA), which encourages to allow competition, as the regulation of the patent protections, in the market for biologic

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.

The drug industry has severely attacked government, feeling that they are too restricted and that government has no right to

Pharmaceutical companies had been reluctant to provide drugs to developing countries at reduced prices because of concerns around distributing drugs in unregulated and unreliable environments. They argued that this could create new drug-resistant

Therefore, protection of patents is one of the key conditions necessary for further development of the pharmaceutical industry. At the same time, non-efficient legislation that does not provide the necessary level of patent protection is one of the factors that hamper expansion of “Big Pharmaceutical” companies to the developing countries8.

One of the effects of the TPPA involves an increase in the price of medicines. According to the TPPA agreement, prices of medicines will increase between 60% and 80% from the current price. This agreement will involve the regulation of medicines in generic drugs have changed that are not allowed to be sold in the member countries of the TPPA. A generic drug is cheaper imitations that have the same content and effect of the original drug. Thus, drugs can only be purchased directly from

Cipla should look to protect their patents on particular medications and explains why rules governing intellectual property rights in industrialized nations should not apply to poorer countries.

The Patents Act(established on 1st August, 2001) provides thedrug patent owner certain exclusive rights in respect of its patent within twenty years from the filing date of the application regarding the patent applied (Lim &Ooi, 2006). The merit of drug discovery can reduced the risk of heart disease which is common in Malaysia. The drug which haspatented prevents generic drug competition. Patents provide legal protection for inventors in order to prevent other people from making use of their ideas. Therefore, only the pharmaceutical company that developed the drug is allowed to sell it. Drug patent gives impact in the economy by that the pharmaceutical companies often maintain that patent protection for drugs ensures that they are able to dominate the market. They do this by investlots of money into the development of new products, by making sure that they will be able to take advantage of the sales.Patent protection for pharmaceutical can help to