How Drug Companies Cheat the Patent System

According to the New York Times, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries recently payed $512 million to settle claims that the company was paying off generic drug companies to keep their cheaper products off the market. The drug company's intent, as explained by the article, was to be able to keep selling their sleep disorder drug, Provigil, for hundreds of dollars without competition from generic copycat drugs. While this would obviously be great for Teva, the reality is that American consumers are forced to pay ridiculous sums for their medications for far longer . When the release of generic drugs is delayed, many ill people must simply forgo medication that much longer.

This is not the first time this practice has been seen in the industry. The New York Times also cites an instance in 2011 in which Cephalon "paid generic drug manufacturers more than $200 million" to delay sales of their generic drugs until 2012. It also says that drug purchasers argued that "were it not for deals with generic companies, the drug [in this instance] would have faced competition in 2006", meaning that Cephalon's pricing remained absurdly high for six years longer than it should have.

According to former Federal Trade Commission policy director, attention being brought to this issue is "a great result for consumers". But, paying off generic companies is not the only way that Big Pharma companies can use their money to slip past the system. Companies such as GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, and Johnson and Johnson have all payed sums greater than a billion dollars to settle claims for offenses such as off-label promotion and paying "kickbacks" to doctors. Hopefully, raising awareness about the Teva incident will subsequently raise awareness about these questionable business practices as well.