Big Pharma Patent abuse decreases raises prices, decreases innovation, and undermines investment.
Brough 22 [Senior fellow on R Street’s Technology and Innovation team, research intellectual property, and patent law. “Patent Problems Create Higher Drug Prices. Time to Fix the System” JULY 22, 2024 https://www.rstreet.org/commentary/patent-problems-create-higher-drug-prices-time-to-fix-the-system/ CG]
When patents are deployed to specifically extend monopoly power, there are significant economic consequences. First, it keeps drug prices artificially high for longer periods, which strains the budgets of patients, taxpayers, and the health care system. Second, it diverts R&D resources away from truly innovative research and toward defensive patenting activities. Third, the outsized profits enabled by extended monopolies may reduce the industry’s incentive to invest in the high-risk, high-reward research needed to develop breakthrough therapies.
Moreover, the anticompetitive practices employed by pharmaceutical companies undermine the intended purpose of the patent system, which is to promote innovation by providing a limited period of exclusivity in exchange for public disclosure of the invention. When companies abuse the patent system to prolong monopolies, they do not contribute to the public store of knowledge or spur follow-on innovation. Instead, they create barriers to entry that stifle competition and deny patients access to affordable medicines.