December 12, 2007

I noted a few minutes ago that attacks on pharmaceutical patents by producers of generics have the effect, analytically, of shortening expected patent lives, and thus of reducing R&D investment and long-run competitive pressures in the drug market. Payments to settle such lawsuits thus are likely over time to prove salutary for consumers.

With the exquisite timing so familiar to fans of the Chicago Cubs, I now find in today's Wall Street Journal an article headlined "AstraZeneca Files Lawsuits Against Generic Drug Makers." So: Instead of paying off the generic producers, we now find Big Pharma paying the lawyers. This doesn't really change the original argument in my earlier post, but it does demonstrate convincingly that Medical Progress Today, the official blog of the Center for Medical Progress of the Manhattan Institute, remains on the cutting edge, today, tomorrow, forever. Even if we, oops, I get the direction of things backward on the rarest of occasions.

And let us bear in mind that the Director of the farsighted CMP---the inspiration for this font of wisdom---is none other than my esteemed colleague, Dr. Paul Howard. Gentleman. Scholar. Babe magnet. Connoisseur of thick steaks and fine whiskey. Bon vivant. Etc.

Posted by Benjamin Zycher at December 12, 2007 10:58 AM

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