04.29.15
Pharmaceutical Patents and Hedge Funds: Evil Fighting Evil
Summary: Revisiting the subject of patents on life or life-saving processes, plus a hedge fund’s extortion-type attack on such patents (for quick profit)
TECHRIGHTS has been focused on software patents, but in earlier years there were quite a few articles here about other notorious kinds of patents that should not at all exist because they kill a lot of people and contribute nothing at all to innovation, progress etc. They are clearly against public interests.
“We examine the effect of pharmaceutical patent protection on the speed of drug launch, price, and quantity in 60 countries from 2000-2013,” said this new article about evidence from TRIPS, responding to some rather disturbing developments around patents and lobbying from pharmaceutical giants (seeking more protectionism from governments, especially Canada’s). See last week’s article “Startup Pledges To Cut Cost Of Breast Cancer Genetic Testing From $4000 To $249″. It says that a “startup called Color Genomics is announcing that it will provided genetic testing for breast and ovarian cancer – the same genetic tests that led Angelina Jolie to have her breasts and ovaries surgically removed – at one-sixteenth the cost of the main test that is currently used.”
“They are now using patents, or threats of invalidation thereof, to manipulate markets.”This isn’t about pharmaceuticals’ abuse but it is related to it and it tackles patents which pertain to life — patents that oughtn’t exist in the first place.
Much of the news coverage this month actually revolved around a case which was mentioned here before because of the very dirty tricks involved (“hedge funds are extorting money from pharmaceutical companies by either filing or threatening to file for re-exam,” is how Steph put it). The Wall Street media wrote: “A well-known hedge-fund manager is taking a novel approach to making money: filing and publicizing patent challenges against pharmaceutical companies while also betting against their shares.”
Other Wall Street media wrote: “Shire Plc is “confident” it will prevail against a U.S. hedge fund’s challenge to its drug patents after winning a similar fight with Actavis Plc, according to an intellectual-property attorney for the Dublin-based company.”
The Financial Times went with the headline “Shire rebuffs hedge fund’s attack on patents” and various Wall Street-centric sites covered it 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] without paying much attention to the unethical side/aspect. Here is a press release, coverage from lawyers’ media, and some from pharmaceuticals’ media [1, 2, 3]. Since one party is Irish, even the Irish press covered it, adding to a lot of other reports in English [1, 2, 3, 4, 5].
To put it in very simple terms, what we have here is abuse by gambling agencies/firms (hedge funds) that so often act like vultures in order to make a quick buck. They are now using patents, or threats of invalidation thereof, to manipulate markets. We have sympathy for neither side because both hedge funds and companies that hoard patents on drugs (to artificially elevate prices) are deeply unethical. Both have been criticised here before. █
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