Report – Patent Abuse A Leading Cause Of High Drug Prices In US

By David Branigan for Intellectual Property Watch

Pharmaceutical companies have created an “untenable” situation by engaging in exploitative patenting practices to extend monopolies, increasing drug prices and delaying competition from more affordable generics, according to a new NGO report analysing drug prices.

The report, “Overpatented, Overpriced: How Excessive Pharmaceutical Patenting is Extending Monopolies and Driving up Drug Prices,” was produced by the New York-based Initiative for Medicines, Access & Knowledge (I-MAK).

The report shows that since 2012, prices of America’s top-selling drugs have “increased by an average of 68 percent, with only one drug dropping in price,” and that the “average best-selling drug has 125 patent applications filed and 71 granted,” according to an I-MAK press release.

“Spanning twelve drugmakers and a range of conditions such as cancer, arthritis, stroke, and diabetes, the study captures an industry-wide trend of pharmaceuticals ‘evergreening’ their products with excessive patents so they can artificially extend monopolies and boost profits—at the expense of American families and the budgets of public and private payers around the country,” according to the press release.

“Abuse of the patent system is causing undue economic hardship and keeping lifesaving medicines out of the hands of people who need them,” Tahir Amin, co-founder and co-executive director at I-MAK, said in the release.