The history and economics of pharmaceutical patents

Abstract

The relationship between patents and the pharmaceutical industry is both complex and important. While many believe that patents are manipulated by the pharmaceutical industry for its own economic ends, a historical approach to the utilization of patents combined with an analysis of current patent issues places this relationship in its proper context. Though patents were created long before the pharmaceutical industry reached its current status as a major industry in the United States, a historical, analytic approach shows that the pharmaceutical industry has adjusted to constantly evolving legislation enacted to provide the most effective and efficient system by which to research, invent, regulate and patent new medicines.

Citation

Wertheimer, A. and Santella, T. (2007), "The history and economics of pharmaceutical patents", Farquhar, I., Summers, K.H. and Sorkin, A. (Ed.) The Value of Innovation: Impact on Health, Life Quality, Safety, and Regulatory Research (Research in Human Capital and Development, Vol. 16), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 101-119. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0194-3960(08)16006-1