Generic drugs are a cheaper substitute for brand-name drugs. They are legally accepted products that enable poorer countries and patients to exercise their right of access to healthcare. However, pharmaceutical companies have found a way of preventing generic companies from producing their name-brand drugs once their patent expires. This is done through multi-million settlements, which are profitable for both companies. This paper will review the ethics of this practice.
“ Pay for delay” agreements that bar generic companies from immediately making generic drugs are a commercial practice. This practice gives pharmaceutical companies of the brand name time to earn more income for a drug for which they spent enormous resources in its research and development. The generic companies, in turn, gain millions without doing much. On the other hand, patients who cannot afford the drug under its brand name due to its high price have no other recourse. They either find the money or do without the drugs, while hospitals have to create cost-cutting measures to afford the drug (Fox, 2017). This is very unethical since it prevents them from attaining the right to access adequate healthcare due to the profits for pharmaceutical companies' shareholders.
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Prioritizing profits at the expense of human life and health is unjustifiable by pharmaceutical and generic companies. The enormous resources spent on discovering the drug, which is an excuse most pharmaceutical companies would use, is just that; an excuse. Patents last for 20 years, while there are exclusivity periods recognized for some categories of drugs ( DrugPatentWatch ). During this period, the company with sole rights to the drug would have recovered its expenses and made enormous profits. Extending this monopoly situation is just a means of extending the time the company makes huge profits through sole manufacturing of the drug and unregulated price control. All the while, patients continue to overpay for a drug that some may have been using since its market inception.
Works Cited
DrugPatentWatch. "Drug Patent Life: How Long Do Drug Patents Last?" DrugPatentWatch - Make Better Decisions, 22 Feb. 2019, www.drugpatentwatch.com/blog/how-long-do-drug-patents-last/. Accessed 12 Mar. 2021.
Fox, Erin. "How Pharma Companies Game the System to Keep Drugs Expensive." Harvard Business Review, 6 Apr. 2017, hbr.org/2017/04/how-pharma-companies-game-the-system-to-keep-drugs-expensive. Accessed 12 Mar. 2021.
