Skyrocketing drug prices are forcing states to take unprecedented measures to rein in health care spending. Vermont just became the nation’s first state to require prescription drug pricing transparency. The New York and Massachusetts attorneys general have launched investigations into major pharmaceutical companies’ and insurers’ drug pricing policies and strategies.
These are important steps. But they ignore a key driver of the problem: secondary patents. Familiar to only a few people inside the insular world of intellectual property law, secondary patents work like this: Companies file for additional, defensive patents to thicken the protection around their original base patents. These additional patents rarely represent anything new in terms of science. Instead, their purpose is to prolong a company’s monopoly and, along with that, its ability to charge high prices for its drugs. Some drugs have dozens of secondary patents. Abbott Labs, for example, has over 108 patents on its HIV drug Kaletra.
Read Full Article »