Patents yield real benefits for patients

Patients need help paying for their medicines at the pharmacy counter, and the pharmaceutical industry wants to be part of the solution, but undermining the patent system is the wrong approach.

Patents are the lifeblood of the medicines patients rely on every day in America. Not only would weaker patent protections limit investment in new medicines and other important medical advances, they would also reduce competition by undermining the incentive to create new medicines to compete with existing medicines.

Innovation doesn’t stop when a medicine is approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Research continues following a medicine’s initial approval, resulting in innovations that improve the lives of patients. These include improved delivery mechanisms and treating new diseases. Obtaining patents on new medical advances following initial FDA approval leads to real benefits for patients.

The process of researching and developing a lifesaving medicine is long and uncertain. The basic term for a U.S. patent is 20 years, beginning from the date the patent is filed, which in the pharmaceutical space can be long before the FDA grants approval of a new medicine. In fact, up to half of that basic patent term may be lost before a medicine is ultimately reviewed, approved and made available to patients.

Furthermore, an additional patent only covers the specific medical advance such as a new use of an existing medicine in a completely different disease; it does not extend existing patents or prevent competitors from coming to market.

Instead of harmful changes that would discourage R&D investments critical to addressing unmet patient needs, we need to recognize the role of patents in incentivizing pharmaceutical innovation that helps patients and also in spurring brand-to-brand, generic and biosimilar competition critical to containing costs.