Open AccessPatent protection strategies
Author(s) -
Himanshu Gupta,
Suresh Kumar,
Saroj K. Roy,
Ram Gaud
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
journal of pharmacy and bioallied sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.268
H-Index - 36
eISSN - 0976-4879
pISSN - 0975-7406
DOI - 10.4103/0975-7406.62694
Subject(s) - patent infringement , monopoly , incentive , pharmaceutical industry , business , risk analysis (engineering) , patent law , pipeline (software) , process (computing) , key (lock) , industrial organization , drug development , law and economics , intellectual property , computer security , drug , computer science , economics , medicine , pharmacology , programming language , market economy , microeconomics , operating system
It is widely recognized that the pharmaceutical industry faces serious financial challenges. Large numbers of blockbuster drugs are losing patent protection and going generic. The pipeline of new drugs is too sparse to fill the gap and generate a platform for future growth. Moreover, many of the new products are biologics with much narrower target patient populations and comparatively higher prices relative to traditional pharmaceuticals. So now the time has come for pharmaceutical scientists to have a better understanding of patent fundamentals. This need is illustrated by analyses of key scientific and legal issues that arose during recent patent infringement cases involving Prozac, Prilosec, and Buspar. Facing this scenario, the pharmaceutical industry has moved to accelerate drug development process and to adopt at the same time different strategies to extend the life time of the patent monopoly to provide the economic incentives and utilizing it for drug discovery and development. This review covers the need of patent protection and various strategies to extend the patent.