Barriers to the Cure

Friday, November 28, 2008, 15:47
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ADRF believes that economic and scientific survival pressures in the pharmaceutical industry and some research establishments impede the timely advancement of research and clinical trials exploring the “Common Cause” Hypothesis. The brutal truth is that the pharmaceutical industry benefits by treating the effects of chronic diseases rather than finding their cures.

Financial Pressures on Pharmaceutical Industry

	On average, it takes 10-15 years to develop a new drug
	Only 20 in 5,000 compounds that are screened enter pre-clinical testing, and only 1 drug in 5 that enters human clinical trials is approved by the FDA as being both safe and effective.
	The average cost to develop a new drug has been estimated to be $802 million, according to a recent study conducted at Tufts University.
	Average total drug development time has gone from 8.1 years in 1960, to 11.6 years in the 1970s, to 14.2 years in the 1980s and 1990s.
	Average returns from marketing a new drug have dropped 12% since 1984.
	n 1984, generics accounted for 19% of the prescription drug market; by 2000, generics accounted for 47% of the prescription drug market. Generic drugs may eventually reach 75% of all drug sales.
	Drug expenditures account for 8% of all health care spending and will soon surpass spending for physicians’ services and hospitalization costs. In 1997,the dollar sales of prescription drugs in the United States amounted to $71.8 billion, of this, 90% comes from the sales of brand name prescription drugs.

Risk of Suppression

A discovery made in an academic laboratory is considered to be intellectual property (IP). IP belongs to the inventor of the discovery and to the academic institution in which the discovery was made. To consummate a formal collaboration between academia and industry, the institution must license the IP to the company. Once a collaborative research agreement is struck, neither the inventor / investigator, or the institution is in control of the IP (for as long as the agreement lasts). The company controls the IP and can do with it as it wishes. The company may opt to sequester the IP, that is, opt to prevent rather than develop a product.

An evaluation of the various practices employed by the large companies specializing in brand name drugs indicates that intellectual property protection is not being used to promote an incentive to create and innovate. Rather, intellectual property rights are being used to gain and maintain an exclusive market share for the most profitable, not necessarily the most beneficial, drugs. The Journal of Law and Technology

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