Re: Question
On Tue, Dec 27, 2005 at 01:25:37AM -0500, Hal Vaughan wrote:
> I wonder, how many copyrights or patents do you hold?
>
> If you're a drug company or a big hardware/software company <...>
Going a bit off-topic here, but having worked in drug development, I can tell
you that no drug would be developed by anyone except the government with a
5-year drug patent term. Takes that long just to get through FDA procedures
some of the time. Typical time from lab idea to product on the shelf,
although it varies a lot, is around 10 years (and a billion dollars).
Although I don't think I would support lengthening the patent term, I can tell
you from talking to people in the field that the (to them) short term skews
drug development decisions towards "blockbuster" drugs that can make a huge
amount of money in those 7 years after the drug hits the market. It also
skews towards "me too" drugs and slightly-improved versions of existing drugs
because those take less time in development.
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