Yet I have never seen the industry spin in higher gear either, perhaps they necessarily go hand in hand, but it is sad to see science and patients steamrolled by marketing MBAs and CEOs that may be excellent managers but little regard for patients behind closed doors. There a few true leaders in the industry. My own compnay released a PR campaign about two years ago and at our meeting to introduce us to it, they made it very clear this was for PR purposes, to blunt negative news coming out about a settlement for company wrongdoing - oh and by the way, patients might eventually get helped too.

Frivolous Capture of Profit

When a patented med is about to lose its patent, any other company can reverse engineer this particular product rightfully so, and its originator no longer profits off of this med in a very short period of time- usually within the first year of patent loss. Since we are talking about what could be a great loss of pharma profits, such companies initiate such tactics as bogus patent infringement lawsuits- especially when evergreening and other patent extension methods, such as obtaining a pediatric indication fail, perhaps. The industry does not like their profit stream to be inactive.

What exactly is patent infringement? Basically, in this case, the branded pharma company accuses another generic company of plagiarizing thier invention, which with pharma are chemical patents, such as in the case of a branded med, and therefore a generic company having possession of their former branded med are accused of trespassing without permission of the accuser, which again is the branded med. If another med is made, used, or sold without authorization, a patent is infringed, although it is allowed when the patent expires in the pharmaceutical industry. Patent attorneys get involved and file these largely pointless lawsuits which clearly lack merit not because there is an actual issue if the patent is in fact expired of the branded med, which is the case typically. But because by filing such a lawsuit, this wrongfully created case has a mandatory wait period of 2 ½ years with this type of lawsuit to be decided, which means that much more profits of the makers of the branded med for that period of time, which could mean billions for such a pharma company and their branded med. An analogy may be keeping the stock market open a bit longer to benefit a few, perhaps, but it is clearly dishonest.

This is allowed in our legal system and why this occurs, this system flaw, remains a mystery. Patients are coerced to continue to pay high prices of branded drugs due to the generic delays caused by these lawsuits filed by the branded pharma companies, so harm is caused by this tactic to the patients who take these meds. Is it not prevented, such lawsuits, because the lawmakers possibly have been bought by big pharma through lobbying? Is it because of the present administration’s affinity with the pharma industry? One can only speculate.

At one point, pharmaceutical companies’ culture and mission had what were called ethical medical standards. Why? Because it was the right thing to do, since medicine as a practice may be considered both sacred and complex. At times, drugs were created without patents with intent, believe it or not. Jonas Salk and the Polio vaccine is an example of this. Perhaps that was the last time such a noble event happened. Profit motive was not the entire focus, as it appears today with drug companies.
No patent for Dr. Salk? Is that due to some mental illness of this creator? Absolutely not. The intent of Dr. Salk was to have greater availability of this vaccine for the benefit of public health. Dr. Salk believed that life was not a popularity contest. Today, such an act may be considered taboo or psychotic. I applaud his bravery and stance on his discovery, which, by the way, was funded by our government entirely.

Fast forward to today and such atrocious acts such as the lawsuit issue mentioned a moment ago. That once admired ethical industry somehow became possessed with a ‘greed is good’ mentality. Ethical Medical Standards are not visible and likely do not exist anymore, as far as I can observe. Deception, however, does. And the new pharma mentality is encouraged without regard to the optimal health for U.S. citizens. Yet what is stated by pharma (Billy Tauzin, et. al.) opposes what appears to be the case as illustrated by their actions such as what has been described. It’s my belief that U.S. citizens want a return of ethical medical standards, and they deserve this.

“Silence, indifference, and inaction were Hitler’s principal allies— Lord Jacobovits

Dan Abshear

In the case of Alphagan and “P,” a number of opthies have gone to rx’ing the generic (even without reps) because of lack of efficacy and other problems with the “improved” version.

But it is true that a variety of legal shenanigans kept generic off market for nearly three years. (But, as reported, not in 30 other countries, including Canada, although the stuff was still made in California. Just not on sale there.)

Through a range of strategies, they were able to keep generic briminodine tartrate .2% (the original Alphagan) off the U.S. market for nearly three years.

Their final move was to suggest that Alph P was a safer med. (But, as lawyers pointed out, they then had to explain why they were still selling Alph classic around everywhere else in the world.)

While the clinical trials showed a 50% reduced risk of ocular allergy for P (relative risk number - actual difference quite small) the relative risk of P not having adequate efficacy was 400% over original Alphagan in clinical trials (also rel. risk number).

Needless to say, last bit was not in the presss releases.