By Kanon Mori Kanon is a sophomore student at UCLA fascinated by the intersection of health, policy, and technology to advocate for a more equitable American healthcare system. Besides academics, Kanon loves training with her Triathlon team, traveling with her family, and exploring restaurants in LA with her friends! One night during a late shift at UCLA Santa Monica Medical Center, I saw a group of grim people walk mournfully out of a patient’s room. “The doctor gave the patient an option to undergo chemotherapy. He declined because he didn’t want to financially burden the family,” a nurse whispered to me. As I later helped the nurse clean the room, I couldn’t help but sympathize with the man who had to make an impossible choice between his life and his family’s financial future. I felt outraged that pharmaceutical companies’ inhumane price gouging gave them the power to decide a person’s life.
Under the current imbalance of power held by a few multinational pharmaceutical corporations, medicine (an inherently good system) has become an industry where a few companies and their shareholders’ voices are prioritized over the sick and vulnerable patients. There are too many victims like the man that I saw who die from curable ailments. Patients are faced with the decision of risking bankruptcy or their own life, and sadly, it is an all-too-familiar occurrence in America. To provide some scale to the issue, prescription drugs are roughly four times costlier in America than in similar, high-income countries, even for the same exact drug. Prescription drugs cost our nation roughly $330 billion per year and are the ultimate driver of our national healthcare expenditures that cost about 20% of the GDP. In 2016 alone, there were 260 Americans per 100,000 who died from preventable or treatable illness — almost twice the rate of comparable countries. Drug prices should not hinder accessibility, and individuals from low- and middle-socioeconomic classes deserve to receive the same medical treatment as any other individual. We cannot let sick Americans continue to die from illnesses when we know that there is a drug out there to save them. So why are drugs so much more costly in the US? One of the main causes of the issue is that a few huge, multinational pharmaceutical corporations with immense lobbying power such as Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson (otherwise, “Big Pharma”) have historically monopolized the drug market by exploiting the FDA’s exclusive-license patenting rights. Big pharma has been able to abuse the use of exclusive patents because of 37 CFR § 404.7 from the Code of Federal Regulations. Under 37 CFR § 404.7, the FDA can license exclusive patent rights for a certain duration to pharmaceutical companies to enjoy a monopoly on a new drug that they invent. It only becomes worse from here. Drug companies have found ways around this system to prolong their monopoly right on drugs through an infamous method known as evergreening. This is done by making slight but medically and socially meaningless modifications to the original drug -- sometimes even simply changing the color of the drug itself -- to renew the exclusive patent and extend the monopoly period. The length of market exclusivity depends on the type of drug, but to give some examples, orphan drugs (treatments for rare diseases affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US) get seven years of exclusivity, while new chemical entities (NCEs) get five years. Yet in comparison, data shows that the best-selling drugs in the US have been enjoying 38 years of exclusivity with an average of 125 patent applications per drug. This data is not because pharmaceutical companies have been innovating at unprecedented rates, it is because they are gaming the system to maximize their profit. There is a need for policymakers to abolish the FDA’s exclusive licensing practices by spearheading the notice-and-comment process that removes 37 CFR § 404.7 from the Code of Federal Regulations. As a result, there would be increased usage of non-exclusive licensing in which multiple licensees would be able to use intellectual property generated through research to develop the medicine. In other words, there would be more pharmaceutical companies in the drug market competition and prescription drug prices will decline. Healthcare should be a human right, not a commodity. We cannot continue to watch sick patients die on our soil when we know that a cure for them exists. It is time to fix the system.
31 Comments
9/5/2022 07:20:20 am
Really informative article, I had the opportunity to learn a lot, thank you. https://freecodezilla.net/perfex-crm-nulled-free-download/
Reply
9/11/2022 04:08:41 pm
Really informative article, I had the opportunity to learn a lot, thank you. https://kurma.website/
Reply
9/12/2022 01:34:09 am
Really informative article, I had the opportunity to learn a lot, thank you. https://odemebozdurma.com/
Reply
9/14/2022 07:45:39 pm
Really informative article, I had the opportunity to learn a lot, thank you. https://bit.ly/site-kurma
Reply
10/4/2022 02:31:13 pm
I think this post is useful for people. It has been very useful for me. Looking forward to the next one, thank you. https://escortnova.com/escort-ilanlari/cankiri-escort/orta-escort/
Reply
10/5/2022 09:01:16 am
It was a post that I found very successful. Good luck to you. https://escortnova.com/escort-ilanlari/kirsehir-escort/akpinar-escort/
Reply
10/5/2022 11:08:03 pm
I follow your posts closely. I can find it thanks to your reliable share. Thank you. https://escortnova.com/escort-ilanlari/mugla-escort/koycegiz-escort/
Reply
10/6/2022 12:18:54 pm
I support your continuation of your posts. I will be happy as new posts come. Thank you. https://escortnova.com/escort-ilanlari/nigde-escort/camardi-escort/
Reply
10/7/2022 08:29:43 am
I think the content is at a successful level. It adds enough information. Thank you. https://escortnova.com/escort-ilanlari/izmir-escort/beydag-escort/
Reply
10/7/2022 10:45:19 pm
Thank you for your sharing. I must say that I am successful in your content. https://escortnova.com/escort-ilanlari/sakarya-escort/karapurcek-escort/
Reply
10/8/2022 10:35:12 am
Thoughtful and real content is shared. Thank you for these shares. https://escortnova.com/escort-ilanlari/cankiri-escort/
Reply
11/21/2022 07:42:12 am
Hemen Göz At evde para kazanmaya basla: https://sites.google.com/view/evden-ek-is/
Reply
12/15/2022 07:20:15 am
takipçi satın al ve sitemizi ziyaret et: https://takipcim.com.tr/
Reply
1/5/2023 06:51:26 am
100 tl deneme bonusu veren siteleri öğrenmek istiyorsan tıkla.
Reply
4/27/2023 06:33:29 pm
Steroid Sipariş: https://www.anabolickapinda14.com/urun/
Reply
7/13/2023 02:03:39 am
It all is impressive to read the paper these types of interesting together with different article content for your web-sites.
Reply
8/9/2023 08:39:17 am
Steroid Siparis Steroid Fiyatlari Steroidler Anabolizan Orjinal Steroid Steroid Satis Steroid Satın Al Steroid Siparis Et
Reply
8/15/2023 04:22:13 am
https://www.sporunuyap8.com/ teşekkürler
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
|