Researchers Suggest Patent Challenges Reduce Pharmaceutical Innovation and Productivity

An article published in this week's issue of the journal Science says that the development of new and innovative pharmaceuticals is being stifled by a U.S. law and successful patent challenges that embolden generic competition.

Matthew Higgins and Stuart Graham, assistant professors in the College of Management at the Georgia Institute of Technology, argue in their article that the recent surge in Paragraph IV patent challenges -- a provision of the Hatch-Waxman Act of 1984 -- is decreasing the incentives for pharmaceutical innovation and contributing to productivity and revenue declines in the pharmaceutical industry.

"With the current healthcare debate, consumers and policy-makers need to understand that while we are getting cheap drugs now, it may be at the cost of novel future innovations and long-term access to new treatments because in our current system, industry revenues support continued research and development, and patents support revenues," explained Higgins, the Imlay assistant professor of strategic management at Georgia Tech.



Source-Eurekalert