Posted by Michael Wonder on 12 Dec 2016
Lives and profits in the balance: the high stakes of medical patents
11 December 2016 - Decades after Dr. Jonas Salk opposed patenting the polio vaccine, the pharmaceutical industry has changed. What does that mean for the development of innovative drugs and for people whose lives depend on them.
“The West Wing,” Aaron Sorkin’s television series about a fictional White House, had a knack for crisply summarising complex real-life issues. In an episode from 2000, pharmaceutical executives and leaders of an AIDS-plagued African country are summoned to the White House. The purpose is to see if reluctant businessmen can be persuaded to sell the Africans desperately needed drugs at a modest price.
“The pills cost ’em 4 cents a unit,” a presidential aide grouses about the companies.
“You know that’s not true,” a colleague says. “The second pill cost ’em 4 cents. The first pill cost ’em $400 million.”
