Prescription drugs have always been overly expensive but there’s now hope for these prices to drop down. On Tuesday morning, the Senate Health Committee held a hearing to discuss the reason why prescription drugs were so pricey and what they could do to change that.
The witness stand was filled with a trio of lobbyists: one from the pharmaceutical industry, from the pharmacy industry and from the pharmacy benefits-management.
The most clear cut example as to how drug prices are rising can came from that of Allergan Inc. v Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc. The Allergan case is all about it’s $1.5 billion dry-eye medication called Restasis and how it was involved in a patent ploy. Allergan transferred its patent rights to New York State’s Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe because of their sovereign immunity which would make competitors unable to overturn the drug’s patent at Patent Trial.
In short, Allergan is abusing the patent system through sleazy methods.
Another sneaky move by Allergan was to use its new patents to sue the creators of other versions of the drug. Federal Judge William Bryson called these moves “blocking patents.”
In addition, Allergan issued a group of “citizen’s petitions” to the FDA. These were made to allow people and organizations to have a voice at the federal regulatory agency. However, pharmaceutical companies have hijacked this system to use and abuse citizen petitions to delay approvals of a generic drug, sort of like a filibuster in Washington delays the passing of a bill. Allergan submitted three petitions pertaining to Restasis for this reason.
Allergan has also been in the habit of holding grudges, more recently with a company called Shire that sued them recently. They’ve been going behind Shire’s back and cutting deals with companies that prevented Shire from selling a product. They also went all out and sued the company Imprimis because apparently they were in violation of FDA regulations. But maybe this grudge came from the fact that Imprimis also makes a dry-eye medication and they are by default, the competition.
Restasis is the company’s baby, being their second-largest golden goose right after Botox. Allergan is very protective of its property. At the end of Bryson’s ruling on Monday, Allergan released a statement that said, “we remain committed to vigorously defending the intellectual property of our products.”
it all smells kind of fishy doesn’t it?
