I'm not entirely sure there are words to describe how bizarre it is to watch Andrew Sullivan rely entirely on research from the pharmaceutical industry's web site to make his case for why drug companies should get to charge anything they want. I mean, really, we're going to need a new term. Gullimarkable?
In any case, Sullivan's case is a mess even if you excuse his sources. He gets really excited about a 1994 European Commission report saying "Europe as a whole is lagging behind in its ability to generate, organise, and sustain innovation processes that are increasingly expensive and organisationally complex." The quote from the report then ends, and we have to rely on Pharma's interpretation of how it relates to drug research on the continent.
If Sullivan weren't just parachuting into the issue with a copy of Free to Choose and a tone of extreme indignation, he'd know that a similar study was released last year showing problems in the American pharmaceutical market -- notably, a precipitous drop in new drug development from the pharmaceutical industry.
A report by the General Accounting Office concludes that current patent law discourages drug companies from developing new drugs by allowing them to make excessive profits through minor changes to existing pharmaceuticals. While pharmaceutical research and development expenses have increased by 147% since 1993, applications for approval of "new molecular entity" (NME) drugs, or drugs which differ significantly from others already on the market, have risen only 7%. According to the report, the majority of newly developed medicines are so-called "me-too" drugs, which are substantially similar to existing drugs, are less risky than NMEs drugs to develop, and which "offer little in the way of therapeutic breakthroughs."
Entirely 68 percent -- two-thirds -- of the industry's new drug applications are for knock-off, me-too drugs. The incentives for copying tried-and-true products are far, far too high. So it turns out profit -- generated here by patents -- can actually harm drug development! Am I blowing your mind yet?
