According to the piece, all the would-be entrants signed agreements with AbbVie delaying entry, with the first competitor just entering the market this year. However, the threat of patent suit was enough to discourage potential competitors from entering the market. patent office is notorious for being lax in its standards, having once granted a patent on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Many of these patents are of dubious legal status. According to the piece, Abbvie applied for a total of 311 patents on the drug, 165 of which were granted. However, as the piece points out, AbbVie, the drug’s manufacturer took out dozens of other patents on Humira. In principle, generic competition would have lowered the price considerably. Its main patent was due to expire in 2016, which would have in principle opened the door to generic competition.Īt the time, Humira was being sold at $50,000, for a year’s treatment. Humira is an extraordinarily effective arthritis drug taken by tens of thousands of people in the United States. The latest example of this story of corruption was a front-page New York Times piece on the arthritis drug Humira. In this context, economic theory predicts they will bend or break the law to extend and expand their protection as widely as possible. Patent monopolies and related protections allow pharmaceutical companies to sell drugs at prices that are typically several thousand percent above their free market price. ![]() We should think the same way about the pharmaceutical industry and patent monopolies. If people can buy these items in a free market, then no one is going to have any big incentive to make payoffs to police officers or judges, there would be no reason. ![]() The old line from economists on this problem is to take the money out, by making marijuana and alcohol legal. They will also corrupt the legal system in the process, making payments to people in law enforcement and elsewhere in the legal system. Since there is much money to be made by selling these products in violation of the law, many people will follow the money and break the law. Outlawing items such as marijuana or alcohol invariably leads to black markets and corruption.
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