To keep drug prices high, pharma has been piling up the patents
Add-on patents have increased drug patent periods from two years to over six.
Add-on patents have increased drug patent periods from two years to over six.
The short version
- The cost of healthcare in general is a debilitating, pre-existing condition for Americans.
- But the high prices of prescription drugs usually stand out as a pain point.
- While there are many insidious reasons why Americans pay more—often far more—for their medicines than people in peer countries, exploitation of the US patent system is an obvious one.
What happened
A study published Monday in JAMA highlights just how much patent exploitation has grown since 1990. In that time, researchers found that the number of patents on small-molecule drugs has more than tripled, going from an average of 2.1 patents per drug approved in 1990 to 6.9 for those approved in 2019.
Why it matters
Sean Tu, an expert in drug and patent law at the University of Alabama—found that the increase in patents per drug extended the time in which a drug was patented from an average of two years in 1990 to an average of 6.1 years in 2019.
Summary by Nerd News Network. Read the full article at Ars Technica via the links above and below.