Patents Not Enough Of A Monopoly, According To Biotech Firms

from the say-what? dept

Apparently, a bunch of big biotech firms feel that the patent monopolies they already have over certain drugs aren't enough, and they are demanding Congress enact laws that also stamp out any competition from similar drugs (known, back here in the real world, as competitors). You would think that after centuries of understanding how bad monopolies are for the market that the gov't wouldn't kowtow and simply hand over such things -- but it is. Of course, the biotech firms already have patents, so it's questionable why they also need an additional gov't granted monopoly period to block out "biosimilar" drugs, other than the fact that they don't like competition.

They claim, of course, that they need this exclusivity to recoup their costs in developing the drug. However, the deeper you look at the details, the less true that really is in practice. Much of the really core biotech work is done under gov't grants anyway, and often at research institutes. These private firms pick up the trail later in the game in a lot of cases -- but still get full patent rights. The actual cost of developing these things has been massively overstated, often lumping in marketing costs to R&D. It is true that clinical trials are crazy expensive and a huge burden on biotech and pharma companies, but that's a separate issue. There are numerous proposals about ways to take the clinical trial burden expense away from pharma. Lumping those mandatory gov't induced expenses into basic R&D is misleading. Furthermore, even in the face of competition, time and time and time again, we've seen that the original provider still commands a large and noticeable premium, from which it can easily recoup its costs. This is nothing more than blatant monopoly rents with a Congress too clueless about basic economics to resist.

19 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Latest Study Highlights How Damaging Intellectual Property Has Been To Biotech

from the more-evidence dept

TorrentFreak alerts us to the latest in a long line of research that highlights just how damaging the intellectual property system has been to innovation. This isn't new, of course. We've been pointing to tons of research on this subject for years, but it's great to see some more to add to the pile. And this isn't just a couple of folks with an opinion either -- but a seven year study, involving a large interdisciplinary team of folks examining all aspects of intellectual property, with the main focus being on the biotech industry. The report hits on a few key themes we've highlighted over the years:

The current era of intellectual property is waning. It has been based on two faulty assumptions made nearly three decades ago: that since some intellectual property (IP) is good, more must be better; and that IP is about controlling knowledge rather than sharing it. These assumptions are as inaccurate in biotechnology – the field of science covered by this report – as they are in other fields from music to software.

The full report is a good read. It's well researched and documented, and points out that listening to IP lawyers alone, or just looking at IP laws is a huge mistake in analyzing the overall impact of IP:

An analysis of IP laws alone gives a distorted understanding of how IP facilitates innovation and dissemination. Such an analysis must be complemented by an understanding of business and governmental practice as well as the public and private institutions and entities that create, grant and govern IP.

There's plenty more in the report, and it's all footnoted, and some of the additional research is new to me and will be fun to explore over the next few weeks.

However, while the report's description of the problems is dead on, the report runs into trouble when it gets to the "and what do we do about it" section. It talks a lot about "new IP" which is vaguely defined, and involves a lot of wishy-washy statements about trust and collaboration and openness. It basically suggests that a bunch of different parties all have to start acting differently but doesn't necessarily explain why or how that will work. That seems... difficult, and a tad idealistic. This is really too bad, given how solid the earlier part of the report is. It's almost as if the group putting together the report saw all the problems, but couldn't come up with really concrete solutions. That's unfortunate, given that plenty of folks have shown real world examples of how the system can work just fine by simply removing IP from the equation, and watching the business models that result. Overall, this is an excellent addition to the literature in looking at the problems, but comes up short when it gets to the solutions side of the discussion.

12 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Biotech Now Being Taught In High Schools

from the with-an-emphasis-on-real dept

There's definitely been a lot of talk lately about how biotech is the industry that's got the most promise to be "the next big thing." Whether you agree with that or not, it seems that some high schools want to prepare the next generation of students for biotech jobs, so they're actually offering biotech as a high school class. What may be most interesting here is the connection between the schools and actual biotech companies. This isn't just about learning about biotech, it's about interacting with companies in the space and understanding the business side of biotech, rather than just the technology (er... and biology). The hope, obviously, is to help make sure the next great biotech breakthroughs come from American companies -- and the best way to do that, supporters of these programs believe -- is to get high school kids thinking about and excited about biotech opportunities. Still, while it's surprising that there isn't more pushback (at least the article doesn't note any) about corporations reaching directly into high school classrooms, it seems like a reasonable thing to do in such an emerging area. A standard curriculum won't be all that useful in a rapidly changing arena -- and connecting with companies who are on the bleeding edge is likely to be a lot more educational in the long run anyway.

12 Comments | Leave a Comment..