DOSE OF REALITY: STUDY FINDS BIG PHARMA’S PATENT THICKETS ON JUST FOUR BRAND NAME DRUGS COST MORE THAN $3.5 BILLION IN TWO YEARS
Patent Abuse Blocked Competition From More Affordable Alternatives For Periods Ranging From Seven Months To More Than One Year
In case you missed it, a study recently published in JAMA Health Forum found lost competition due to Big Pharma’s patent thickets on just four widely prescribed brand name drugs cost patients, taxpayers and the U.S. health care system more than $3.5 billion in excess spending over two years.
The analysis included a review of delayed generic competition to imatinib (Gleevec), glatiramer (Copaxone), celecoxib (Celebrex) and bimatoprost (Lumigan). These brand name products all first began facing competition from more affordable alternatives between 2014 and 2018.
“The study found that extended market exclusivity periods ranged from seven months for celecoxib to 13 months for glatiramer, significantly delaying generic entry and driving up costs,” according to a summary published in The American Journal of Managed Care (AJMC). “Over the two years following generic competition, the absence of these extensions would have reduced US drug spending by an estimated $3.5 billion—including $1.9 billion (95% CI, $1.3–$2.5 billion) in commercial insurance and $1.6 billion (95% CI, $1.1–$2.1 billion) in Medicare Part D.”
Big Pharma has a long history of price-gouging American patients through tactics designed to game the U.S. patent system and block competition from more affordable alternatives — enabling pharmaceutical manufacturers to maintain monopolies over their biggest money-makers. Big Pharma companies often file many, even dozens or hundreds, of patents on a single medication, a practice known as patent thicketing, to extend exclusivity and block competition from more affordable options for months, years or even decades.
A January 2023 report from Matrix Global Advisors found Big Pharma’s patent thickets on just five brand name drugs, including AbbVie’s autoimmune drug Humira and oncology drug Imbruvica, Regeneron’s ophthalmology drug Eylea, Amgen’s autoimmune drug Enbrel and Bristol Myers Squibb’s oncology drug Opdivo, cost patients, taxpayers and the U.S. health care system more than $16 billion in a single year.
Market-based solutions to crack down on Big Pharma’s egregious patent abuse have a demonstrated track record of strong bipartisan support and should be swiftly passed by Congress to boost competition and help lower prescription drug prices for patients.
In April, the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary advanced several such bipartisan solutions that would foster greater prescription drug competition, projected to produce billions of dollars in savings by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), including The Affordable Prescriptions for Patients Act (S. 1041) that would crack down on Big Pharma’s patent thickets and was unanimously passed by the U.S. Senate during the last Congress.
Read the full study in JAMA Health Forum HERE and the summary in AJMC HERE.
Read more about Big Pharma’s patent abuse HERE.
Learn more about market-based solutions to hold Big Pharma accountable and lower drug prices HERE.
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