Yes, Of Course Drug Patents Drive Up Drug Prices; Why Is This Even Up For Debate?

Patents

from the as-obvious-as-obvious-can-be dept

The idea that there is a link between the exclusivity period on patents and higher drug prices is about as noncontroversial as a view can be. It is the easy question on an ECON 101 exam on monopolies, supply and demand. Yet, somehow, this has come under attack thanks to big PhRMA and their minions. Unfortunately they have found a sympathetic advocate in the Senate who believes the unbelievable.

Sen. Thom Tillis has taken a host of actions trying to unlink the obvious connection between patents and high drug prices, and he is trying to force both the FDA and the USPTO to agree with him that the link is a “false narrative.” This assertion, of course, is ludicrous. Patents are the backbone of the pharmaceutical industry, and the reason why drug companies make significantly more than other large public companies. Patents give these companies a guaranteed monopoly period, in which monopoly profits are intended to reward them for the risk and investment spent in bringing new drugs to market. These monopoly periods eventually expire, as required by the constitution, and the resulting influx of competition lowers drug prices by about 80% on average.

This social contract is well understood, and almost everyone thinks this is good for society. So I will give Sen. Tillis the benefit of the doubt and interpret his statement as suggesting that there is no link between gaining an extra, and unintended, monopoly period and high drug prices. But even here the body of evidence to the contrary is extensive. I collected a lot of this evidence in a recent tweet thread. However, it is important to understand a little more about the background of what has quickly become an industry practice.

The story of patent thicketing starts with AbbVie. AbbVie created the patent thicket in much the same way Apple created the smartphone – there may have been others before, but none were as successful or as emulated since. AbbVie’s drug Humira was the best selling drug for almost 10 years, but they faced a problem. Internal estimates showed they would lose their exclusivity as early as 2017. They needed a strategy to stall generic entry for as long as possible, and they hired the extremely controversial consulting company McKinsey to help come up with a plan. While several strategies were presented, the patent strategy quickly became the most successful. As one biotech patent attorney put it: if you have a $16 billion-a-year drug, “every month is a good month that you’re on market alone. So you’re going to spend whatever it takes to be as aggressive as possible and get as many patents as possible.”

The strategy is simple even if it sounds like it should be impossible: find as many ways to patent an existing product as possible. This can include creating a staggered rollout of patent applications around formulations, dosing regimen, route of administration (for example, using the drug in an injector pen), dosing regimen for new indications (i.e. new diseases the drug can treat), and manufacturing processes. As one AbbVie internal document put it: “in the eye of biosimilar makers, how would they manufacture Humira?” AbbVie just needs to patent those manufacturing processes, even if they aren’t using them, and biosimilars won’t be able to make the drug.

All of these documents show that drug companies are trying to get new patents, with later expiration dates, on existing drugs for purely financial reasons. This alone proves Sen. Tillis wrong. But is there widespread failure of the patent system that demands a response? Again there is ample evidence that there is.

One study showed that 78% of new patents were associated with existing drugs, not new ones. The same study found that most of the companies who were successful doing this once would try again, with 50% becoming serial offenders. Another study found that most of the patents used to block generic and biosimilar entry represented minimal-to-no additional benefits to patients using the drug. 

These delays have costs. One study found that Medicare spent an average of $109 million a year extra due to delayed generic entry. The main cause of delayed competition? Patent litigation. Another study found that one year of improved patent examinations on secondary and tertiary drug patents, to catch bad patents before they issue, saves $8.7 billion in the future. And when Humira went generic in Denmark in 2018, residents saw their prices drop by 82.8%. In the US we’ve faced regular price increases on Humira because it remains patent protected.

These abuses of the patent system may carry additional costs to innovation and safety. A recent study of R&D competition around Covid drugs found that whenever a firm finds it profitable to invest in developing a minor modification, R&D for radical follow-on innovation goes down. This could mean that the incentives created by the availability of patents for existing drugs may actually lower R&D investment in new drugs, as resources chase lower risk and more immediate profits. Some researchers have even found startling signs of negative innovation, or innovation that promotes riskier and less beneficial treatments. This happens when the better treatments are unpatentable. The study shows a company pursuing a treatment that overdoses patients because more appropriate doses were considered obvious under prior art. Overdosing, however, was patent eligible because it was considered non-obvious.

This evidence shows a widespread problem in need of a policy response. Indeed, those calling for reform now include the New York Times, the Department of Health and Human Services, former Trump cabinet member Alex Azar, and many researchers and public interest advocates. Whoever is advising Sen. Tillis on this issue needs to include the full evidence on drug prices and patents. Especially since the Senator appears to be engaging in good faith around efforts to improve patent quality and stop various abuses of the patent system. But without good information, I fear bad policy may result.

Matthew Lane is a Senior Director at InSight Public Affairs where he specializes in competition and IP issues.

Filed Under: biosimilar, drug patents, drug prices, economics, fda, generics, humira, monopolies, patent thicket, patents, thom tillis, uspto
Companies: abbvie