patents on genes good or bad for medical inventions

[philip]

Is this a good or a bad thing looking at medical inventions?

Just to make sure: patents give a temporal monopoly on an invention (!) if the inventor makes his invention public. The idea is that a company can gain back what they invested in research and licenses can be given to anybody who pays enough.

As two major advantages there's that information gets public access, thus making more research possible where otherwise companies might keep the inner workings of their inventions secret. The other is that companies might put money into research now they can get their investments back.

There are more disadvantages.
-A lot depends on the attitude of the patent holder. For example prices of the licenses and the product/method itself.
-There could be less research cause the material which has to be researched is patented.
-Doctors don't search for a solution but it'll be researcher and company. Now a doctor diagnoses a disease and tries to find out a solution but then there will be a third party that isn't necesarrily out there to help the patient.
-Quality control can be really hard when companies outsource certain parts of tests to other countries.
-There could be problems with continuing the production when a company stops or goes bankrupt.
-In a medical case people most of the time don't have a choice on if they want to go with a product. It's either do or die.
-Knowledge on rare or local diseases will be lost, unless non-profit organisations research it.
-A commercial company has to make profit. This can be by making things expensive or by producing large quantities. Either way that will give problems in what is researched or on the price.

I think I'm against patents on genes because of the monopolies. What's the use of a medicine if it's too expensive? Right now there's a problem in the Netherlands (don't know in other countries) that patients don't get the best medicines because they're too expensive. In a monopoly the concentration of power is way too much on the side of the company.
I don't think patents will give much of a boost to invention cause of the licence costs that make people think twice about researching something. I'd rather go for normal concurrention and take disadvatages for granted.
Also companies are there to make profit, they don't care for the health of someone if they can't make much profit. Non-profit research organisations have to stay in any case. This also counters the argument that the money is spread more evenly. Though patients pay for what they get, I assume they still pay some of the money for non-profit organisations (via taxes).
Also outsourcing doesn't seem like a very good idea to the privacy of people. It could also lead to problems with insurance as you might get insurance companies stopping high-risk people from getting insured.

What do you think?

[VulcanRider]

Originally posted by philip: Is this a good or a bad thing looking at medical inventions? Just to make sure: patents give a temporal monopoly on an invention (!) if the inventor makes his invention public. The idea is that a company can gain back what they invested in research and licenses can be given to anybody who pays enough. As two major advantages there's that information gets public access, thus making more research possible where otherwise companies might keep the inner workings of their inventions secret. The other is that companies might put money into research now they can get their investments back. There are more disadvantages. -A lot depends on the attitude of the patent holder. For example prices of the licenses and the product/method itself.

VR- The price of the license is usually based on the money spent for the research. Whoever paid for the work wants to get their money back.

-There could be less research cause the material which has to be researched is patented. -Doctors don't search for a solution but it'll be researcher and company. Now a doctor diagnoses a disease and tries to find out a solution but then there will be a third party that isn't necesarrily out there to help the patient.

VR- I think doctors today either deal with research or treatment. I don't think any do both.

-Quality control can be really hard when companies outsource certain parts of tests to other countries. -There could be problems with continuing the production when a company stops or goes bankrupt.

VR- How are either of these blamed on patents? They're both true whether the invention is patented or given away for free.

-In a medical case people most of the time don't have a choice on if they want to go with a product. It's either do or die.

VR- And if nobody's willing to pay for the research, they'll have one choice -- die.

-Knowledge on rare or local diseases will be lost, unless non-profit organisations research it.

VR- Lost? Why? Information's not lost because when a patent is filed detailed documents about that invention are made public. The whole point is to be able to say "See this? It's mine." But since patents don't last forever, eventually that information becomes available for anybody to use.

-A commercial company has to make profit. This can be by making things expensive or by producing large quantities. Either way that will give problems in what is researched or on the price. I think I'm against patents on genes because of the monopolies. What's the use of a medicine if it's too expensive?

VR- it's more useful than if nobody pays for the research and it's never developed in the first place.

Right now there's a problem in the Netherlands (don't know in other countries) that patients don't get the best medicines because they're too expensive. In a monopoly the concentration of power is way too much on the side of the company. I don't think patents will give much of a boost to invention cause of the licence costs that make people think twice about researching something. I'd rather go for normal concurrention and take disadvatages for granted. Also companies are there to make profit, they don't care for the health of someone if they can't make much profit. Non-profit research organisations have to stay in any case. This also counters the argument that the money is spread more evenly. Though patients pay for what they get, I assume they still pay some of the money for non-profit organisations (via taxes). Also outsourcing doesn't seem like a very good idea to the privacy of people. It could also lead to problems with insurance as you might get insurance companies stopping high-risk people from getting insured. What do you think?

Sorry, but I get the impression you'd like companies to spend $$ on research and give away the fruit of that labor. The simple truth is that if you take away the chance to make a profit, you take away the major incentive to pay for research. That means there will be less research done, and scientific progress will take longer.

[philip]

Originally posted by VulcanRider: VR- The price of the license is usually based on the money spent for the research. Whoever paid for the work wants to get their money back.

I know that but those could make doing research on the subject by others less attracting. So scientific research by other companies could be hindered by this for the time of the patent.

VR- I think doctors today either deal with research or treatment. I don't think any do both.

My formulation wasn't really clear. Right now the doctor will try to help you if you have a disease. If he doesn't do any research his job is to help you. The third party, the researcher for a company doesn't have to do this, he simply has to research the disease. That's when there's a risk the care for a patient won't be optimal. In the Netherlands now only a few institutes have a license from the government to research genetic diseases or any disease that has somehow got to do with genes.

quote: -Quality control can be really hard when companies outsource certain parts of tests to other countries. -There could be problems with continuing the production when a company stops or goes bankrupt.

VR- How are either of these blamed on patents? They're both true whether the invention is patented or given away for free.
[/QUOTE]For the first you're completely right. Though national influence on quality control will be less. But still that's not really an argument against it cause there's still the international laws. The second one is because if a company has a patent no other company can exploitate the product.

VR- And if nobody's willing to pay for the research, they'll have one choice -- die.

quote: -A commercial company has to make profit. This can be by making things expensive or by producing large quantities. Either way that will give problems in what is researched or on the price. I think I'm against patents on genes because of the monopolies. What's the use of a medicine if it's too expensive?

VR- it's more useful than if nobody pays for the research and it's never developed in the first place.[/QUOTE]There will be research, there are still non-profit organisations doing research. The only thing I want to say is that everyone deserves the best treatment. Commercial companies drive up the prices cause they have to make profit. With patents they can even do so for nearly 20 years. I understand it's completely fair that companies get back what they invested, and I agree with that. But right now too much depends on the attitude of the patent holder. He can set the price. In the Netherlands the system is now somewhere between deciding on if to implement it and implementing it (though they should have done it already because of the European law) and now the price is still set by insurance companies and the non-profit research centers. What happens if patent holders do that? You get the same as what happens now in the pharmaceutical industry, prices can be outrageous to the point where you either have to pay yourself or you can't get the treatment because neither the hospital nor the insurance company wants to step up for it. That those won't pay for the best medicine out there says a lot about how high that price can be. They go up into the 100 thousands of Euros (so about the same in dollars) per patient.

Companies with a monopoly position gained by a patent take advantage of the position of a patient who will have to use it. Medicines are not luxury goods. That's when I say leave that to non-profit organisations to research and get the price a bit lower that way. That kind of inventions won't help much if a huge majority of people can't get access to them while they need it. I think it's ethically not right to have medication for people but then make the price so high so that you can make profit. Profit as in more than reasonable salaries and the research costs you made. Even if you put this extra in other projects, the money for some scientific research should be spread evenly and medical inventions should be one of them.

VR- Lost? Why? Information's not lost because when a patent is filed detailed documents about that invention are made public. The whole point is to be able to say "See this? It's mine." But since patents don't last forever, eventually that information becomes available for anybody to use.

It's lost in a sense that there's less research on it cause often those diseases aren't commercially viable.

Sorry, but I get the impression you'd like companies to spend $$ on research and give away the fruit of that labor. The simple truth is that if you take away the chance to make a profit, you take away the major incentive to pay for research. That means there will be less research done, and scientific progress will take longer.

I don't mean that. I think it's perfectly acceptable that companies get something back for their investments. But the patent system as it is now doesn't provide the proper protection for patients, research and though it will always in a way be private interest for a company to do research and produce that the balance has swung too much to the private interest while public interest should still be looked at too.

[ 03-06-2005, 03:07 PM: Message edited by: philip ]

[Legolas]

I think it's a good thing.

Simply put, if you have to do all the research and testing and then anyone can come along to sell your product for their own profit, you don't have much incentive to start out, do you? We're easily talking millions of dollars, not something you can afford to lose often.
Regarding the supposed lack of research, the reason it takes so long to develop much of anything, and the cause of the high cost, -is- the testing. It's often (not always) easy enough to set up a construction line for a product and just feed it to whomever's willing to take a risk, but governments don't allow that anymore.

More importantly, the patent is temporary. It does allow for a monopoly but not indefinately.
Typically, they last 20 years. The average drug takes 12 years to develop from the point of discovering a useful substance. That means the company has just eight years to earn back the money spent. On top of that there's the problem of getting people to actually use your product instead of someone else's which has been used in treatment up to that point. After the eight years, anyone can make a generic product and sell them at far lower prices as they don't have to earn back nearly as many research and development costs.
Also, you have to remember that before this time, there was no such drug available (or a patent wouldn't be granted). Companies are not raising prices to spite the patients (mostly); in fact, there were no low prices to begin with. And everyone's free to keep using the traditional treatments.
Of course it doesn't seem to make sense that a potentially succesful cure can't be given to someone yet despite being discovered and produced in small quantities, but really, it does take that long. The other thing to remember is that companies trying to sell their drugs at ridiculous prices, won't sell anything, and won't earn back a thing either. So they won't.

It keeps the industry going and invites people to do research without freezing anything forever. The only downside is few people are interested in developing orphan drugs, compounds which cure relatively rare diseases. There's no big market there and only little money to be made. That'll take government funding to set up, which is sometimes being made available. However, you'll have to agree that researching a cure to improve the qualty of millions of lives is more worthwhile than one improving that of a dozen.

As for the trouble in Dutch hospitals, not being able to afford top quality drugs for all of their patients because of the high prices, I think that's more a result of severe cuts in government funding than an unusually sharp increase in drug prices.

[ 03-06-2005, 03:43 PM: Message edited by: Legolas ]

[Timber Loftis]

Put into action, patenting genes is dangerous. This is due to the sophistication of the patent applicant vs. that of the patent regulator. When Monsanto patented BT soy and cotton, it wrote its patents broadly to cover any gene splicing or genetic engineering relating to soy or cotton broadly. The USPTO let this get through, so now even if you want to patent soy to do something completely different than what Monsanto patented, you must still treat them as the patent holder. If we are to patent such things, the patent regulators need to be on the cutting edge of the curve, not following.

[philip]

..

[VulcanRider]

I think part of the problem is people thinking the cost of a drug is only to pay for the research done to develop that one drug. For every successful pill, how many failures were worked on? Is it a 10:1 ratio? 20:1? Anybody know?

OFF TOPIC -- Welcome back TL!

[Legolas]

Typically, a new compound has a chance of 1 in 5000 to 1 in 10000 of actually being sold on the market. About 40% of the cost of creating a new drug is spent on finding such a molecule. On average, a handful will be found and further funding spent on developing those. This is the point where they are patented, and from there it's the average 12 years to completion. By now, out of the 10000 there are maybe 5 to 10 promising compounds. Most of those will fail later on in development for any number of reasons. Say it's a 10 to 1 ratio, but then you're not doing justice to all the work spent on finding those 10 in the first place.

New technologies allow more compounds to be reasearched at once, in less time, and with fewer expenses so that does help.

What does not, are the Me-too type compounds, which are basically slightly modified versions of excisting drugs. These will typically do just about the same thing but work longer, or shorter, swifter or delayed, and aren't as hard to find. Since they're not the same molecule, they get a patent of their own. The main challenge there is convincing others that that drug actually offers an advantage over conventional ones.
Where a broad patent results in others not being able to work in a field for a good number of years, a narrow one results in a lot of the same.