[Ip-health] Pharmalot on Prizes

[Manon Ress]

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[ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
http://www.pharmalot.com/2007/10/prizes-not-patents-for-drug-discovery/

Prizes, Not Patent, For Drug Discovery
October 22nd, 2007 2:10 pm By Ed Silverman

Here=92s a way to achieve patent reform - blow up the system. And
that=92s what Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont, is
proposing in legislation he introduced late last week. The bill,
which is, in part, the brainchild of consumer activists who follow
patent issues, would eliminate market exclusivity for new drugs, but
would give inventors or developers cash rewards from a new =93Medical
Innovation Prize Fund.=94 A key requirement - the products have to
improve health outcomes.

The funding would start at $80 billion a year, and increase with the
growth in the nation=92s Gross Domestic Product, or GDP. The idea is to
eliminate monopolies and allow generic competition in the hopes that
drugs prices would fall =91dramatically,=92 and produce savings of more
than $200 billion a year, according to Knowledge Ecology
International, a group that worked on the bill with Sanders. [UPDATE:
We=92re reminded that he introduced a similar bill more than two years
ago when he was in the House].

How would it work? Each new prescription drug or biologic registered
by the FDA would =93win=94 something from the prize fund, but the amount
given to a developer would vary, according to the evidence, obtained
over 1o years, that the product improved healthcare outcomes,
according to KEI. Using metrics such as Quality Adjusted Life Years,
the managers of the fund would estimate benefits compared to
benchmarks of existing meds, and divide the $80 billion fund on the
basis of relative effectiveness in improving health outcomes.
Products that produced more benefits would get a larger share of the
prize fund than products that produced fewer benefits.

This is a novel idea. Others may have different descriptions. But
what do you think?

Vote:

Should prizes replace the current patent system?




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Manon Anne Ress
manon.ress@keionline.org,

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Il vaut mieux remuer une question, sans la d=E9cider, que la d=E9cider,
sans la remuer.
Pens=E9es, essais, maximes et correspondance de J. Joubert  p.249
http://visualiseur.bnf.fr/Visualiseur?Destination=3DGallica&O=3DNUMM-88671
Translation: It is better to debate a question without settling it
than to settle a question without debating it