PhRMA,
Patents, Profits vs Patients
Ahkwesáhsne,
Mohawk Nation
September
2017, Allergan transferred Restasis® patents for the eye drug to the
tribe in upstate New York near the Canadian border. Allergan paid the tribe
$13.75 million up front and agreed to pay up to $15 million a year in royalties
as long as the patents remained valid. At the same time, the tribe gave
Allergan “the sole and exclusive right” to manufacture and market the drug in
the United States for uses approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Restasis® is a treatment of chronic dry eye
disease, had sales of nearly $1.5 billion in 2017 — Allergan’s best seller
after Botox.
In a similar ploy, AbbVie
filed 247 patents for Humira, a single drug for arthritis starting in 2007..
They received over 132 patents for that drug and are blocking competition for
39 years. They have increased prices 144% since 2012.
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