Pharma patent exclusivity extensions cause steep hikes
Gill 24 (Dee Gill, writer whose work as appeared in University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Wall Street Journal, Time magazine, The Economist and the New York Times , As well as a foreign correspondent for London, 24 April 2024, $52.6 Billion: Extra Cost to Consumers of Add-On Drug Patents, UCLA Anderson Review, https://www.anderson-review.ucla.edu/52-6-billion-extra-cost-to-consumers-of-add-on-drug-patents/#:~:text=These%20exclusivity%20extensions%20cost%20U.S.,conservative%20in%20a%20working%20paper., 6/29/24) EA-WH
Pharmaceutical companies gain an average three years in monopoly protections on branded drugs by filing multiple secondary patents, throughout and beyond the development process, a study by UCLA Anderson’s Charu Gupta. Unlike primary patents, which apply to a drug’s active ingredient, secondary patents can cover things like how the drug is administered, what disease it will treat and dosing. These exclusivity extensions cost U.S. patients, insurance companies and other drug buyers about $148.3 million per drug by delaying competition from producing far cheaper generic brands, according to estimates Gupta describes as conservative in a working paper. In a sample of 355 branded drugs, she finds extended monopoly protection raised consumer costs by $52.6 billion. As big as it seems, that figure covers only a subset of years and of the total drugs that enjoy patent extensions, as explained below.