Lisa Simpson
Sep 2,2009
In: Finance

The Horrifying Financial Truth Behind the Patenting of Drugs

There is a horrifying truth of finance behind the patenting of drugs. Research is carried on in the universities funded by government or tax payer’s money. When the research indicates positive signs the drug companies step in with funds in the final stages when the main creative work is over. In return they take over patent rights. None but them can produce the medicines. None but them can line their pockets with dollars.

When public opinion got too hot centred on manufacturing of Aids medicine in South Africa some small concessions were wrung. In case of overwhelming emergency local firms could manufacture the drugs. Who will declare this emergency? It would be none other than the puppets in the hands of the giant drug firms. Professor Brook Baker is an expert on patenting of drugs he said, “Why do they behave like this? Because of direct or indirect pressure from the pharmaceutical companies. It’s shocking.”
Knowledge Economy International is campaigning against this present patenting abuse. Its director James Love said, “Poor countries are not as prepared as they could have been. If there’s a pandemic, the number of people who die will be much greater than it had to be. Much greater! It’s horrible!”
Defending the system Big Pharma argued that plenty of dollars are required to develop life-saving drugs. Without revenue this is not possible. Many researches have been backed that did not produce results. Thus the entire process is extremely expensive.
A comprehensive study by Dr. Marcia Angell previously the editor of New England Journal of Medicine said a mere 14% of their budgets are spent on drug development and that too at the final uncreative stage. The rest is used for marketing and lining pockets. Out of that meagre the firms squander a lot on “me-too” drugs – medicines that do the same jobs as those that already is in market circulation. There is only one molecule difference and this enables them to take out another patent and drown under an avalanche of ill gotten gains.

The USA Government Accountability Office comments that instead of being a front for innovatory sciences the drug market has become stale and “stagnant”. Nothing is spent on killer diseases like malaria because the patients are very poor. There are hardly any gains to suck. Steps to change the system are blocked by the pharmaceutical firms and their powerful cohorts. The production of drugs across the globe continues to be done in such a manner that only the shareholders benefit and not the sick, ill and dying.

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