Will A Patent Be What Kills You?
Roche has a patent on Tamiflu, the drug that diminishes the severity of Avian flu (if the flu doesn't mutate too much) when taken with 48 hours of infection. Supply of the stuff is very low around the world. Should patents be lifted in times of medical crisis? Sarah Boseley writes in the Guardian:
Nobel prize-winner Sir John Sulston called for reform of the drug patent system yesterday to allow faster stockpiling and wider access to the potentially life-saving antiviral flu drug Tamiflu in the UK and around the world.He spoke as the drug company Cipla announced that it would be making its own copies of Tamiflu, which it will sell to countries in the developing world that may need it in the event of a pandemic. Generic manufacture of the drug is not permitted in the UK, Europe or the US.
Intellectual property legislation gives Tamiflu's manufacturer, Roche, a monopoly on sales and marketing of the drug, which is now in huge and urgent demand around the world as the threat of a pandemic is perceived to be increasing.
Britain has ordered more than 14m courses, but so far has 2.5m and delivery of the rest will not be completed for another year. The drug is not a cure for flu, but reduces the severity of a bout as long as it is taken within the first 48 hours of the onset of symptoms, and could therefore save lives.
Sir John, winner of the Nobel prize for medicine for his work on the human genome, said yesterday that the intellectual property laws were an obstacle to faster and wider access to Tamiflu.
"A major problem in the decision-making processes of governments is that drugs are very highly priced. This is because of the way the intellectual property system works," he said on BBC Radio 4. The system rewarded companies for the investment they made in creating drugs by allowing manufacturers to set high prices without competition, but it did not help get universal access to needed medicines.
"I think that if we can reform intellectual property so as to separate the creative process of research and development from the production of drugs, thereby making them cheaper, we will be a great deal better off," he said.
Yesterday Cipla's chief executive, Yusuf Hamied, who helped bring down the prices of Aids drugs to Africa by making generic copies, said his company would make a version of Tamiflu. "We will certainly make it and sell it at a very, very humanitarian price," he said.
Cipla would breach patent laws if he sold the drug to any of the 49 least developed countries under the World Trade Organisation's rules. Roche filed its patent for Tamiflu in 1995.
If government wants Tamiflu that badly, then it should negotiate a huge multi-billion dollar licensing agreement with Roche. Instead, it wants to do things on the cheap by stealing Roche's intellectual property. That's not right.
nash at October 15, 2005 10:59 AM
I am a fierce defender of intellectual property, and I'm all for Roche making profits...but if they can't produce enough of the vaccine steps should be taken to see that others can...whether that involves licensing this out or other measures.
Amy Alkon at October 15, 2005 11:31 AM
Well, then. Nothing should be "intellectual property". It should all belong to government, which knows best.
Drug companies make enough money. On the other hand, so do advice columnists and radiactive waste processors. If they have to give up the idea of flying to France or buying a new motorcycle because vaccination is too expensive, government ought to buy it for them. Right?
By the way - what is "enough", and who determines that?
Radwaste at October 15, 2005 4:06 PM
Agreed. Saying "the patent killed you" is too backhanded.
Crid at October 15, 2005 10:19 PM
There's a potential epidemic here, not a potential Harley purchase.
Amy Alkon at October 15, 2005 11:29 PM
yes, why should the govenment try and prevent the bird flu?
why do they pay cops or soilders for that matter
what do you thisk would happen to the us economy if say 10% of new yorkers died and everyone else was to afraid to leave their home for fear of infection
and then of cousre there is always the other reason, cause it is the right thing to do
dumbass
jphn at October 16, 2005 3:00 AM
Ahh, yes... "the right thing to do".
At what point does this - the intervention of government into private business - stop, and on whose determination?
That's the actual question. Let's see: you want the same Administration claimed by many to be run by a criminal mastermind today and a moron tomorrow to to call out the answer for you? You want the same Congress currently neglecting their Constitutional duties today to make that call? When do we cause government to halt vacation travel to France, for instance, because fuel is too precious a commodity to use except for legitimate business needs?
The balance between the rights of individuals and the power of the state is actually what you are risking - because there is literally no difference between a huge, easily-demonized corporation and the Mom-and-Pop, Inc. down the street.
You want the government to give you what you want today. In that, you are no more or less selfish than anyone else wanting a handout.
That said, carefully-written legislation is the key, here, because a nation of laws cannot be preserved when the rules have no meaning.
BTW - how much of this is simple panic, as news agencies sell Kleenex>
Radwaste at October 16, 2005 6:57 AM
You know, when there was the anthrax scare, I didn't stop opening my mail. I'm not a person who tends to panic at every news item. There's valid reason to believe this could spread and there's little we could do about it thanks to vaccine shortages (and a question of whether the virus would mutate so much that the current vaccines would be ineffective).
Enough with the France travel argument, everybody. It's just silly. I don't see any national cry to save gas, do you? Nothing but a weak, too-late whimper from a guy who's not used to his increasingly low public approval ratings. I went to France twice last year -- one of those times for an entire month -- and I use what I learn there in my column.
I want the government not to have all its citizens on the dole, but to come to the fore in cases of fire, epidemic, or Katrina.
Amy Alkon at October 16, 2005 8:15 AM
> Enough with the France travel argument,
> everybody. It's just silly.
Only when you stop conflating taste and decency.
Crid at October 16, 2005 9:31 AM
i was calling radwaste the dumbass
and given our goverments willingness to screw over anything or anyone who might possible effect business, unless they have political influence, im suprised a seal team hanst already raided roche and distributd the formula and production method to every drug company on the palnet
john at October 16, 2005 12:29 PM
Leave a comment