blockbuster-in-training addendum…

Posted on Tuesday 13 December 2016

We say that the reason that new drugs are given such a generous period of patent-exclusivity is to compensate the pharmaceutical company for its long and expensive research and development process taken at great risk. But ever since the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, universities and/or their faculty can be granted unencumbered patents even if federal funding was used for research and development. Naurex was such a company that arose in the university; received grant and venture capital to develop GLYX-13; obtained the drug patent; then sold itself with the patent rights to Allergan for $560 M [well below the estimated cost of developing a new drug from scratch]. Allergan’s task is getting FDA Approval and marketing the drug at today’s inflated prices. In this increasingly common scenario, Allergan is more in the role of being a drug broker than scientific innovator or developer [or even much of a risk taker]. The government [of the people] pays part of the freight, assumes some of the risk, patents and approves the drug, and the costs [including the lobbying expenses] are rolled into the exorbitant price the people [remember them?] pay for the drug.
  1.  
    a non
    December 14, 2016 | 2:30 PM
     

    “The government [of the people] pays part of the freight, assumes some of the risk, patents and approves the drug, and the costs [including the lobbying expenses] are rolled into the exorbitant price the people [remember them?] pay for the drug.”
    ….device, treatment or therapy:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sQ2gEX7Nfo

  2.  
    Mark
    December 15, 2016 | 11:32 AM
     

    I suspect Bayh-Dole has also shifted university priorities toward near-term profitability and away from basic research. Over the longterm, I doubt it’s healthy for science to be steered by technology transfer offices.

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