Medicine (and Patents), American style

Abbvie has bilked the American public and medicare out of $114 billion in five years.

In “How a Drug Company Made $114 Billion by Gaming the U.S. Patent System”, Nic Antaya writes:

AbbVie and its affiliates have applied for 311 patents, of which 165 have been granted, related to Humira, according to the Initiative for Medicines, Access and Knowledge, which tracks drug patents. A vast majority were filed after Humira was on the market.

Some of Humira’s patents covered innovations that benefited patients, like a formulation of the drug that reduced the pain from injections. But many of them simply elaborated on previous patents.

For example, an early Humira patent, which expired in 2016, claimed that the drug could treat a condition known as ankylosing spondylitis, a type of arthritis that causes inflammation in the joints, among other diseases. In 2014, AbbVie applied for another patent for a method of treating ankylosing spondylitis with a specific dosing of 40 milligrams of Humira. The application was approved, adding 11 years of patent protection beyond 2016.

The patent strategy for Humira was designed to “make it more difficult for a biosimilar to follow behind,” Bill Chase, an AbbVie executive, said at a conference in 2014.

This is the American way. Taking it further, Chris Hedges wrote:

we now live in a nation where doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the press destroys information, religion destroys morals, and our banks destroy our economy.¹

This is what the US would like to bring to Europe. Indeed, is in the process of importing to Europe. Ursula von der Leyen personally (at least her husband) and directly benefited from the sale of billions of dollars of mRNA injections during the Covid crisis, yet continues to sit in her EU presidential throne, using her past successful scores, to fund future endeavours in graft. The text messages are destroyed, the money sits in off-shore and numbered bank accounts.