¶ … ability of drug developers to protect their intellectual property.
The Me-too drugs
According to Angell, a Harvard Medical School lecturer, the 'me-too' drugs are being put out in the industry in large amounts. They are similar to the present treatments which mean that they are no better than the drugs that are already present in the market treating a similar condition. Even seventy-five percent of the drugs that are being approved by the FDA are me-too drugs so there is always a possibility that it can be more effective than the present drugs in the market but as long as they are effective as compared to a placebo, they would always get the approval of the FDA making it difficult for the drug developers to protect the actual drugs (Jones, 2004).
Inflated prices
The American industry spends a lot of money on marketing as compared to research and at least every 3rd drug that was marketed by the leaders of the industry were invented by small biotech firms or universities, however they are sold at inflated prices to the public. For example, Taxol which is a cancer drug, was discovered by NIH (National Institute of Health), but it was sold by Bristol-Myers Squibb for twenty thousand dollars a year, which is twenty...
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