I'm disappointed this article doesn't mention the effect this will have on future pharmaceutical investment. Companies spend billions researching and testing drugs for safety and effectiveness. Companies capable of developing successful drugs need an adequate period in which to recoup their investment and earn enough to fund new drug research. If companies know they won't have meaningful ownership over medicines they develop, they won't spend the huge amounts of capital necessary to develop them. When countries like India let competitors produce generics of American drugs, they are stealing the fruits of other people's labor. That isn't to say this theft isn't justified; generics will save the lives of those who can't afford the original. But those lives would have been lost all the same if no such drug had been developed in the first place. Stealing drugs will certainly help India in the short run, but it will slow the advance of medicine in the long run, for Indians and everyone else.
How India's Patent Office Destroyed Gilead's Global Game Plan
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Re: How India's Patent Office Destroyed Gilead's Global Game Plan
#12I'm disappointed this article doesn't mention the effect this will have on future pharmaceutical investment. Companies spend billions researching and testing drugs for safety and effectiveness. Companies capable of developing successful drugs need an adequate period in which to recoup their investment and earn enough to fund new drug research. If companies know they won't have meaningful ownership over medicines they…
Not like your average Indian who makes $6 a day can afford the patented medicines that costs $10 a tablet anyways.
Re: How India's Patent Office Destroyed Gilead's Global Game Plan
#13I'm disappointed this article doesn't mention the effect this will have on future pharmaceutical investment. Companies spend billions researching and testing drugs for safety and effectiveness. Companies capable of developing successful drugs need an adequate period in which to recoup their investment and earn enough to fund new drug research. If companies know they won't have meaningful ownership over medicines they…
There is a difference between:
1. Getting justified fruits for people's labor (researchers). Say- getting a great ROI like 1000% or huge ROI of 100000%
2. Getting greedy and trying to multiply the the ROI at the cost of human lives.
I have seen pretty stupid patents (that are logically obvious or near common sense) granted to American companies in tech sector (and have been astonished since I helped create some of those). I believe pharma is no different.
Re: How India's Patent Office Destroyed Gilead's Global Game Plan
#14I'm all for patents to protect pharmaceutical companies, but there needs to be a profit limit where the patent expires early.
Re: How India's Patent Office Destroyed Gilead's Global Game Plan
#15If India wants to break patents in order to make drugs available to low income citizens that's one thing (in this case Gilead was already offering a cheap generic), to say the patent on Sovaldi is not innovative is a bit ridiulous.
The article explains it better instead of simply saying it's not innovative. It's worth reading these 2 paragraphs: "India believes that the patent standards are so low that companies can get patents for inventions very easily," Amin said in an interview. The patent office's examiner ruled Gilead's patent claim "lacks novelty and inventive step," as Bloomberg News noted, and also doesn't demonstrate it's significantl…
This is what I think is the vital issue. Taking a known compound and searching for every possible form in order to find one that doesn't happen to have been documented is in fact something that is "obvious to one skilled in the art," because it's a widespread activity. There are specific rules in the US patent system surrounding this issue.
So it's not like the drug maker was necessarily whacked by some rogue judge issuing a weird decision out of the blue. It may very well be that Gilead was taking a known risk at the hands of the Indian patent system.
Does Sovaldi satisfy India's standards for novelty? I don't know. I've had a patent application struck down over novelty, so I know it's not a happy day when it happens.
Re: How India's Patent Office Destroyed Gilead's Global Game Plan
#16I'm disappointed this article doesn't mention the effect this will have on future pharmaceutical investment. Companies spend billions researching and testing drugs for safety and effectiveness. Companies capable of developing successful drugs need an adequate period in which to recoup their investment and earn enough to fund new drug research. If companies know they won't have meaningful ownership over medicines they…
I don't think companies spend as much as we believe in researching drugs. Companies spend most on advertising and incentivizing the doctors to prescribe their medicines. The book: Bad Pharma [1] is an eye opener.
The drug "Sovaldi" is making them $2.8ish billion dollars per quarter, that is almost $12 billion a year. I don't believe they spent tens of billions in developing the drug. [2]
1: http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Pharma-Companies-Mislead-Patients-...
2: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-28/gilead-reports-lowe...
Re: How India's Patent Office Destroyed Gilead's Global Game Plan
#17According to Wikipedia: Sofosbuvir costs US$84,000 for 12 weeks of treatment used for genotypes 1 and 2 (about US$1,000 per pill) [...] health care costs in California could increase by US$18–29 billion per year because of this medication
It's also much more effective than the competition (i.e., its cure rate is higher). It also doesn't make you feel like you have the flu during the treatment period. The higher % of people who relapse on alternative treatments could end up costing more than just paying for the better drug in the first place. The cost of the medication alone is not enough information.
Re: How India's Patent Office Destroyed Gilead's Global Game Plan
#18Can people in now go to India on medical tourism and get the treatment much cheaper?
This has always been the case [1] :-). Medicines and medical care in India is cheaper, by many folds, compared to US. Anecdotaly, whenever my Indian friends working in US visit India (parents, family) one thing they never forget is to visit dentists. I initially found it very surprising but understood their reasoning when I came to know that in US you can easily go bankrupt due to medical condition, something that's unheard of in India.
Re: How India's Patent Office Destroyed Gilead's Global Game Plan
#19I'm disappointed this article doesn't mention the effect this will have on future pharmaceutical investment. Companies spend billions researching and testing drugs for safety and effectiveness. Companies capable of developing successful drugs need an adequate period in which to recoup their investment and earn enough to fund new drug research. If companies know they won't have meaningful ownership over medicines they…
I am also disappointed, but not because I have presupposed the answer. I am genuinely curious as to whether Gilead will say "All right, drugs were fun but we're gonna do mobile gaming now," or whether they are making enough revenue from other markets and perhaps other drugs that they'll continue to discover and develop drugs like Sovaldi. I don't think the answer is obvious to someone (like me) who hasn't been paying close attention to the profitability of drug development, so I would have appreciated
In particular, while I can see grassroots protestors not thinking about the long term, I vaguely assume that Médecins Sans Frontières knows what they're doing, and wouldn't have been backing this strongly if they didn't think it was also a long-term good strategy. But I definitely would have appreciated more discussion of that point, since I don't put much stock in my own vague assumptions.
Re: How India's Patent Office Destroyed Gilead's Global Game Plan
#20I'm disappointed this article doesn't mention the effect this will have on future pharmaceutical investment. Companies spend billions researching and testing drugs for safety and effectiveness. Companies capable of developing successful drugs need an adequate period in which to recoup their investment and earn enough to fund new drug research. If companies know they won't have meaningful ownership over medicines they…
I don't think companies spend as much as we believe in researching drugs. Companies spend most on advertising and incentivizing the doctors to prescribe their medicines. The book: Bad Pharma [1] is an eye opener. The drug "Sovaldi" is making them $2.8ish billion dollars per quarter, that is almost $12 billion a year. I don't believe they spent tens of billions in developing the drug. [2] 1: http://www.amazon.com/Bad-…
It's not what they spent developing Sovaldi -- it's the fortune the industry as a whole spends developing drugs that never make it to market.
That said, it's quite likely true that marketing is a bigger share of costs than R&D. Pharma companies are out there to maximize revenue, just like any other corporation. It's a reflection of the poor state of regulation in the US that we pay far more of than our share (compared to the rest of the world).