Sunil Shaunak, professor of infectious diseases at Imperial College, based at Hammersmith hospital, calls their revolutionary new model "ethical pharmaceuticals".
Improvements they devise to the molecular structure of an existing, expensive drug turn it technically into a new medicine which is no longer under a 20-year patent to a multinational drug company and can be made and sold cheaply.
More at The Guardian
Insider's view: This could work both ways if Big Pharma get the expertise to do the same thing for themselves!
Evergreening gone wild!
6 comments:
I wondered when you'd pick up on this guff. If they just wanted FTO then why didn't they just publish and save themselves a load of filing fees? These clowns obviously have no idea on IP - if we're talking pro-drugs here with the PEG group then you're going to run into a load of FTO issues. If the PEG group doesn't fall off how can they be bio-equivalent? Won't new trials be required? Attorney from big pharma working for them? Yeah, outside council who won't say no to filing any old tosh. Truly a slow news day!
The only new thing in this story is that its being done by academics and NGOs, not pharmaceutical companies. Tweaking the structure of an existing drug is hardly a new idea.
Errr, do you really think this is going to pass legal muster?
This isn't really discovering new medicines; it's not even me-too. It's just patent-breaking. So you're going to have lots of copycats of old drugs and fewer new drugs. Great solution!
Yes the big pharma has been "tweaking" molecules to expand the class of drugs. Take an example of the "new " ARB class of drugs.Many already on the market and more to come. How many ACEIs on the market. Most doctors don't even bother to know more than 2-3 but they keep puting them out. Perhaps the cost of the developing of a new drug is not as high as the big pharma would wants us to believe. Yes it is costly but not that costly. There are so many sides of this game and all in the name (ostensibly) of saving the humanity. Bravo, big pharma you have become the ultimate big business and it all started by the man called Hans Sandoz in a tiny Swiss village (at the time) called Basel some 100 or so years ago. He accidentaly ate some ergot while having a headache and boom, releif. He too claimed it cost him 300.000.000.000.000.000.Swiss cheese holes to develop it. (at that time they used Swiss cheese holes to pay for things). Anyone hwo does not believe this story try:
onlywemake.generics.notindia@novartis.com
All these idiots are doing is pegylating "bio active molecules", i.e. already known drugs. Their PCT application WO2005007197 as filed is a joke, comically broad, inventive step? novelty? Lets see what Patent Offices around the world grant in its final form - if anything. The search report has a number of Xs and Ys.
A patent prevents others from using your invention but does not necessarily allow you to carry out yours. Even if something did grant they wouldn't have FTO for the parent molecule.
OK, so pharma do tinker with molecules but it's in the hope of make them more effective with less side effects.
Watch Channel 4's report from the 7pm news on the 2nd Jan here:
http://www.channel4.com/news/special-reports/special-reports-storypage.jsp?id=4260
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