10.28.17
Gemini version available ♊︎Amgen is Willing to Kill Many Anemia Patients for Some Patent Revenue
And the CEO makes a killing, with $14,000,000 a couple of years ago
Summary: Amgen’s aggressive patent strategy, culminating even in embargoes, leaves Amgen executives with blood on their hands (but also a lot of patent fees from serial litigation)
Earlier this year we wrote a great deal — at least in passing — about Amgen’s embargo ambitions. It’s a company of what’s commonly known as “fat cats”. We even dedicated entire articles to this matter [1, 2, 3], especially in relation to Sandoz v Amgen. Remember that in this domain in particular embargo typically means death to a lot of people — something that seems not to bother Amgen’s managers. This aggressive, ruthless, greedy company has neither regard nor value for human life.
“This aggressive, ruthless, greedy company has neither regard nor value for human life.”A few days ago this subject was brought up again by Law 360. It’s about this high-profile biosimilars case:
A recent biosimilars litigation raises issues regarding the scope of the 35 U.S.C. § 271(e)(1) safe harbor provision and whether it protects commercial stockpiling. Amgen Inc. et al. v. Hospira Inc., No. 1:15-cv-839 (D. Del., Sept. 25, 2017). Hospira is seeking approval to market a biosimilar version of Amgen’s erythropoeietin (“EPO”) anemia treatment.
That’s another kind of EPO, not the hopeless one in Munich.
“Amgen’s greed (pursuing these truly obscene levels of ‘damages’) isn’t a victimless move.”Amgen’s case against Pfizer’s subsidiary Hospira was also mentioned in this site which is dedicated to biosimilars. It said that “a federal jury found that Hospira had infringed on Amgen’s US Patent Number 5,856,298 (the ‘298 patent), which covers erythropoietin, and ordered the biosimilar developer to pay Amgen, the maker of the reference epoetin alfa (Epogen), $70 million. Hospira had unsuccessfully argued during the trial that its development of a biosimilar product was protected under safe harbor.”
Amgen’s greed (pursuing these truly obscene levels of ‘damages’) isn’t a victimless move. It will directly harm a lot of people, as we explained before. But Amgen doesn’t care about people, unless these people are able to afford grossly overpriced ‘products’, in which case these people are merely ‘consumers’ (like empty vessels that shell out money). This whole war over biosimilars (also an active subject/area of debate at the EPO) and patents on biosimilars leaves actually impoverished and ill people worse off. Many will just die.
“This whole war over biosimilars (also an active subject/area of debate at the EPO) and patents on biosimilars leaves actually impoverished and ill people worse off. Many will just die.”Writing about Bloomberg’s report on the subject (Wall Street media), IAM has just praised the practice. To quote” “This article was pessimistic about Amgen’s chances of penetrating AbbVie’s “seemingly impregnable fortress of patents”, while another Bloomberg blog suggested that AbbVie’s patent strategy was indicative of why only two biosimilars had made it onto the US market by 2016, despite the regulatory route to market being opened in 2010.”
For those who aren’t sure what ill people are at stake here, see Wikipedia and let your blood boil… if you have enough red blood cells to afford it boiling without passing out. █
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