[Ip-health] Guardian: Big Pharma's Bad Karma

[Mike Palmedo]

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[ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/sarah_boseley/2007/01/a_bitter_pill_for=
_the_drug_com.html

Big pharma's bad karma

Sarah Boseley
The Guardian
January 2, 2007

Is it finally time to feel some sympathy for the drug companies that take s=
o much flak?

Suddenly, there is a potential threat to their livelihoods. Two enterprisin=
g academic researchers in London have found a way, they believe, to reinven=
t blockbuster medicines and get them on the market in poor countries for a =
fraction of the high prices they now command. Professors Sunil Shaunak of I=
mperial College and Steve Brocchini from the London School of Pharmacy have=
 developed a model they call "ethical pharmaceuticals" and hope to have a v=
ersion of a new hepatitis C drug available in India within a few years. Ins=
tead of =A37,000 a course, it will cost perhaps a quarter of the price.

This is technically a new drug, because the molecular structure will be dif=
ferent, but it is, if you like, a variation or rearrangement of Roche and S=
chering Plough's drug, called pegylated interferon. And it has to be said t=
hat if scientists employed by the multinationals had not had the first big =
idea, then professors Shaunak and Brocchini's version would not be off the =
starting blocks.

But as it is a new drug, the patent taken out by Roche and Schering Plough =
to protect their investment does not apply. Imperial College has instructed=
 lawyers employed most of the time by big pharma to take out a patent of it=
s own on the new version - not to make a profit but to guard against anybod=
y trying to block development of the drug. The rest of the work - the clini=
cal trials and the manufacturing - will now be done cheaply in India. The I=
ndian government will pay for the trials, because it will save lives and mo=
ney if its young workers can be cured of hepatitis C.

The attraction of the ethical pharmaceutical model is clear - cheap drugs t=
o save the lives of people who would otherwise die. But if it's a success, =
the multinational drug companies will soon put up a howl of "Unfair!" - bec=
ause there will be nothing to stop these cheap drugs, once licensed, being =
sold to the rich markets of Europe and the US.

Patents, argue the drug giants, are their lifeblood. They have to keep the =
prices of their drugs high as long as possible - at least in the rich count=
ries - in order to recoup the vast costs of inventing and developing new me=
dicines. Without their cutting-edge research, we won't have breakthroughs i=
n cancer or heart disease which allow us to live longer, happier lives.

But does it really cost $800m to bring an innovative new drug to market, as=
 the companies insist? That's a fraught issue. Critics argue that this heft=
y price tag not only includes losses on drugs that don't make it, but also =
- and more questionably - the costs of marketing and advertising, which, th=
ese days, are higher than the spend on research and development.

So the real issue here is whether the multinationals can survive the arriva=
l of a new model of drugmaking, which cuts costs to the bone. And the answe=
r is that of course they can. They have had a very lucrative monopoly for a=
 very long time, underpinned by the premise that they are doing good for hu=
manity. Well, they are - but only a section of humanity - their shareholder=
s and patients in the affluent world.

It's about time they had competition. And if the cheap drugs begin to be bo=
ught by the NHS, then there is another solution for the multinationals - wh=
y don't they sell their own drugs at one price in the west, and a far lower=
 price in the developing world. Under pressure, they are now doing that for=
 HIV/Aids. It's time they got moving on other diseases, too.