But Abbott says Brazil currently enjoys the most generous pricing agreement of any country outside Africa. It argues that if patents are broken, pharmaceutical companies may be deterred from investing in further research.
Just for saying that, I think Abbot should be punished with Brazil breaking the patents on HIV medication.
Because this is possibly the *worst* possible argument you can have to stop someone from breaking patents, and the best possible reason to actually do so.
Let me explain (and spare me the economics lectures, please):
Abbot is a manufacturer of HIV drugs that are widely used across the world. Because they have a virtual monopoly over the drug, thanks to their patents, they can charge outrageous prices for drugs that will decide whether someone lives or dies.
But that isn’t the point behind my post. My point is that Abbot claims that if patents are broken, pharmaceutical companies may be deterred from investing in further research. If you believe that, then you probably also believe in the Easter bunny, Santa Claus and the fact that the Golden Gate Bridge is for sale.
The reality has always been that there is more money in the treatment than in the cure. I think it is time that someone breaks the stranglehold that pharmaceutical companies have over peoples’ lives, and make it infeasible to run a business producing *treatment* medication (which should be left to the generics) and focus more on *cures*.
There is a strong parallel between the way pharmaceutical companies are facing a challenge from generics, and the way Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) has challenged traditional software businesses.
Despite the fact that FOSS has completely broken the back of the monopolies that a few software (and even hardware) companies have enjoyed, none of these companies have run out of business, or even seen their revenues reduced in any measurable way. Instead, what FOSS has done is take away the low-hanging fruit, forcing companies like Microsoft to focus on the more difficult stuff (like producing an OS that cannot be cracked in 12 minutes).
In fact, FOSS can literally be seen as the “generics” of the software world, and the positive impact that FOSS has had on the software world has been acknowledged everywhere.
Similarly, I not only disagree with Abbot’s contention that generics will cause pharma companies to stop research – I in fact think that breaking such patents will force pharma companies into a direction that will yield much more credible and tangible results – both revenue and quality-of-life wise.
So GO FOR IT, BRAZIL. Become the Linux of the life-saving world.