What Effect Do Patents Have On Drug Development?

Last year, research from the University of Chicago was released that investigated the effect that patents have on pharmaceutical industry innovation, suggesting that patents could be responsible for distortions in research and development. Just this week, Forbes released its own article questioning the role patents play in pharma companies’ drug development decisions.

The article cites data showing that drug companies invest significantly more in therapies for late stages of disease, rather than on medicines to either prevent or provide treatment in a disease’s earlier stages — particularly for Cancer — that would be more likely to save lives. About the only exception to this “rule” is the human papillomavirus vaccine that will reduce the chances of American girls getting cervical cancer by 70 percent and will eventually prevents tens of thousands of cancer cases in the future, according to Slate.

A recent blog on The Economist Free Exchange presented the following information about the role patents can play in limiting the early-stage drug development process:

• Drug makers conduct 30 times more clinical trials for recurrent cancer drugs than for preventive drugs
• The patent system encourages pharmaceuticals to manufacturer drugs targeted to patients who have almost no chance of surviving the cancer anyway.

The result: $89 billion a year in lost lives.

Though, it’s important to note that patents have a term of just twenty years. So, in the case that a manufacturer has to conduct 10 years of clinical trials to reach its endpoints, the treatment would then have only 10 years of patent life. If a trial for a late-stage cancer only takes one year to reach its endpoints, it will have up to nineteen years of patent life.  This, along with the fact that early stage drugs are far more costly to make, certainly gives increased incentive for late-stage drug development.

“A one-size-fits-all patent system does not cater to the specifics of innovation in the pharmaceutical industry,” the Forbes author wrote. “But tailoring patent law may encourage lobbying and corruption. A careful reform of the patent system is necessary: outright abolition of patents will not be enough to save cancer patients’ lives.”

Forbes also suggests that increases in clinical trial costs, in addition to patents, could be playing a key role in drug makers’ decisions.