What Is Drug Patenting?

Drug patenting allows pharmaceutical companies to legally protect, patent, the components of the drugs they create in their research labs. Drugs that are patented are protected from competition, as other companies cannot use the same mixture of ingredients to create competing drugs. Patents last for 20 years. This has caused political strife across the world.

The Patenting Process

• The chemical composition of an individual drug is submitted to specialist patent clerks at the U.S. Patent Office. Clerks trained in chemistry or who have other outstanding pharmaceutical experience and knowledge study the patent application and compare it to other drugs on the market with the same goals to make sure it is unique. A patent is then issued to the drug makers, and as long as the patent lasts, the manufacturer has a monopoly on making that specific drug. When the patent expires, other manufacturers gain the right to make that drug under a different name.

Patent Protection and Benefits

• Patents prevent other companies from reverse-engineering new drugs as soon as they hit the market, and selling them. Manufacturers who hold patents believe that patents not only protect those sales but that the sales allowed under the terms of the monopoly is the only way for them to recoup the costs of research and development, clinical testing and the patent process.

Patent Extensions

• Companies can apply for extensions of patents as they near expiration in a process called "evergreening." A renewed patent functions exactly like the original patent for a drug, creating a monopoly for the manufacturer and preventing generic versions of the drug from entering the market. Extensions can be issued for any number of years, but are usually set for 3 to 5 years at a time.

Arguments Against Patenting in Poor Nations

• The World Health Organization (WHO) and other international health organizations have argued against patent protection for drugs, citing the lack of the world's poor to obtain drugs sold at high prices because of the maintenance of the monopoly created by the issuance of a patent. A 2003 WHO report recommended that governments assist in financing research and development of drugs for pharmaceutical companies so that the companies would be less reliant on the monopoly to recoup costs. The same report also suggested that manufacturers not seek patents in developing and poor nations. This would allow the original manufacturers and competitors to sell drugs in these nations at lower costs. For example, drugs for AIDS that cost $3,271 a year in countries where a patent is held for them cost only $98 a year in India, where a generic version is available.

Arguments Against Patenting in Developed Nations

• In countries where not everyone has health insurance, generics are more affordable than brand-name drugs; advocates for the poor in developed nations argue that individuals should be able to choose their own drugs and not be subject to monopolies on medications. Advocates also note that patents held in the United States but not elsewhere allow drug makers to sell their products for higher prices in the United States than elsewhere. For example, 65 tablets of 150 mg of the drug Zantac cost $15 in the United States, but in India, 100 tablets of an identical generic version costs just $2.