Abstract
Evergreening is a strategy by which pharmaceutical companies extend the life of their patent monopolies, surrounding an original inventive patent with numerous additional patents with limited to no inventiveness. This strategy delays the entry of generic medicines leasing to higher costs to patients and taxpayers and undermining the patent bargain. This chapter investigates the motivations which trigger evergreening (profit) and to explores the characteristics of evergreening patents, particularly their low degree of inventiveness. The chapter concludes by looking at the impact on the incentives to develop new medicines that address unmet health needs. Given the incentive structure in patent policy that the pharmaceutical industry has managed to achieve, it is far more profitable to extend market monopolies for existing medicines, and develop variants of these, than it is to undertake riskier research to develop totally new medicines. Further, medicalising conditions that are neither life-threatening nor debilitating can be far more profitable than developing urgently needed new medicines. Numerous voices have called for substantial reforms to reset the incentive structure for the pharmaceutical industry, but to date there has been no effective action.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | The Cambridge Handbook of Investment-Driven Intellectual Property |
| Editors | Enrico Bonadio , Patrick Goold |
| Place of Publication | Cambridge |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| Pages | 133-152 |
| Volume | 1 |
| Edition | 1st Edition |
| ISBN (Print) | 9781108989527 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2023 |