Why Is It Ethical To Avoid Pharmaceutical Companies?

Some how They are above copy write and patent law; that states that an individual/company can hold exclusive rights for only three years to regain research and development costs and make some profit. This was established so companies/individuals could not establish a monopoly on a product/service letting them completely control the market price. This is some thing that in the rest of the civilized democratic countries is not allowed and drug are part of the free market system. An example of this would be in Canada the same U.S. Company sells its drugs cheaper to compete with prices in the open market and in the U.S. they charge more money because of their monopoly on the drug.

Many other drugs also lose patent protection leading to the creation of substitutes that are cheaper.

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.

Many countries such as Canada, India, and the UK have price controls. The governments of these countries impose regulations that control the prices of new drugs as well as generics without compromising safety but at the same time they do not burden pharmaceutical companies

We (Individuals) do not want an individual in jury duty under the use of illegal dugs. But, what if the individual is actually under prescription drugs?

Under TRIPS, until a pharmaceutical patent is actually granted, a country has no obligation to protect potential prospective rights (during the pendency of 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.

Pharmaceutical companies are often able to achieve temporary monopolies from patents granting them the exclusive right to produce and market drug formulations they have developed. These patents are:

In 1970 the government passed two new regulations that has effect on the pharmaceutical industry. “The India Patent Act prohibited

As previously mentioned, application fees can reach up to $8000 and maintenance and examination fees can reach up to $650 per year. Since patents may need to be amended and the maintenance fees can accumulate leading to a costly application process. With high costs, after the approval of the patent, many companies charge higher prices for their products in order to recover their costs. This is especially prevalent in pharmaceutical companies who also charge high prices due to the costs of research and development. Pfizer patented a drug called Lipitor and after the expiry of the patent, the cost of Lipitor was “80% off the original cost” (Reference 11). When the drug is first introduced, the drug is the only product that that particular market for a certain medical condition. Therefore, with a monopoly, companies are able to charge higher prices to recuperate their costs from research and development as well as patent costs. However with the patents only protecting innovations for 20 years, patent cliffs occur where the patent expiration of drugs causes many other pharmaceutical companies to produce generic versions of the same drug. This can lead to revenue losses for the original pharmaceutical company as they had to invest significantly into their research and development while other

Patents give intellectual rights to a person or a group of people that invent something. Patents fuel innovation because they give a temporary monopoly to the inventor that received the patent. Otherwise, the originator of a product may not receive the credit, more specifically, the financial reward for creating something useful and sharing it with the world. This applies to medicine just as much as anything else. Pharmaceutical companies spend enormous amounts of time and treasure to research and develop new, effective and safe medications to

While this case is literally full of negative aspects, we will only focus on the main points for both arguments. Pharmaceutical companies want to be sure that the products they spend years and millions of dollars to create are not easily reproduced and sold at discount prices. The profits pharmaceuticals make of their patented products are supposed to refinance new research. So taking away their exclusive distribution rights and allowing other manufacturers to just copy the product and sell it at

* Competitive Pricing – Merck is sometimes forced to lower prices of products, either ones that have gone off patent to maintain market share in the product, as well as for products that are still on patent in order to compete with rival products for the same treatment that are marketed by competitors

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.

The concept of product patent for pharmaceutical products is likely to make life saving medicine beyond the reach of the poor and deprived section of the society around the world.