This Friday, United Therapeutics scored an important win in the fight against generic pharmaceuticals by blocking Novartis from selling a generic version of UT's drug Remodulin. Remodulin is a massive money-maker for United Therapeutics, so they were loath to allow generic manufacturers to copy their formula and create cheaper versions of the drug.
One interesting aspect of the outcome of this court case was that it caused United Therapeutics' shares to spike. This is perfect proof that patent litigation affects company's profit margins and by transitive connection, the entire economy as a whole. There must therefore be a lot of thought put into the patent litigation process since it does have the ability to affect economics so much. The implication of this is that there is a lot of interest on all sides of patent litigation, so there must be care taken to prevent the powers that have money from influencing the outcome of legislation and litigation regarding intellectual property. Unfortunately, we have already seen this materialize somewhat as money does have a huge impact on the outcome of court cases today in the United States.
Another interesting observation is that Novartis will still eventually be able to market a generic version of Remodulin; they just have to wait until 2017 when the patent expires. At that point, there is clearly a question of what the patent is for -- is it really protecting the inventor and the consumer, or is it just allowing these giant pharmaceutical companies to make more money?
One interesting aspect of the outcome of this court case was that it caused United Therapeutics' shares to spike. This is perfect proof that patent litigation affects company's profit margins and by transitive connection, the entire economy as a whole. There must therefore be a lot of thought put into the patent litigation process since it does have the ability to affect economics so much. The implication of this is that there is a lot of interest on all sides of patent litigation, so there must be care taken to prevent the powers that have money from influencing the outcome of legislation and litigation regarding intellectual property. Unfortunately, we have already seen this materialize somewhat as money does have a huge impact on the outcome of court cases today in the United States.
Another interesting observation is that Novartis will still eventually be able to market a generic version of Remodulin; they just have to wait until 2017 when the patent expires. At that point, there is clearly a question of what the patent is for -- is it really protecting the inventor and the consumer, or is it just allowing these giant pharmaceutical companies to make more money?
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