Practice of extending patents stifles competition and can increase the cost of vital drugs to those most in need
US pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson (J&J) is to be investigated by South Africa’s Competition Commission over the high price of its tuberculosis medicine, bedaquiline, and attempts to extend its patent through a controversial practice known as “evergreening”.
What is this?
Evergreening is when brand-name pharmaceutical companies patent “new inventions” that are in reality minor modifications of old drugs.
These could include new forms of release, new dosages, new combinations or variations. Big Pharma refers to this as “lifecycle management” and it effectively means drug manufacturers can make “trivial changes to medicines or their use in order to keep their monopoly in the market”, said The Guardian.
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