Yes, but resolving this might be a case where the cure is worse than the disease. Take Colchicine for example, which is one of the first medicines
ever. It was cheap and plentiful, and thousands of people used it daily to help control gout.
However, nobody ever actually did modern science on it. We all just assumed it was safe and effective, because it had been so for thousands of years.
So, in 2006 the US FDA started the Unapproved Drugs Initiative. The US government said they would give an exclusive right to the drug to anyone who did the science. So, URL Pharma did a tiny bit of research to prove what generations of physicians already knew, and the US Government let them have the exclusive right to sell Colchicine. The price immediately went from pennies a pill to $3 and up.
While I applaud the goal, it is far too easy to turn these well-meaning initiatives into cynical IP land-grabs that are distinctly anti-consumer.
https://www.jwatch.org/jw201006100000001/2010/06/10/spotligh...
However, nobody ever actually did modern science on it. We all just assumed it was safe and effective, because it had been so for thousands of years.
So, in 2006 the US FDA started the Unapproved Drugs Initiative. The US government said they would give an exclusive right to the drug to anyone who did the science. So, URL Pharma did a tiny bit of research to prove what generations of physicians already knew, and the US Government let them have the exclusive right to sell Colchicine. The price immediately went from pennies a pill to $3 and up.
While I applaud the goal, it is far too easy to turn these well-meaning initiatives into cynical IP land-grabs that are distinctly anti-consumer.
https://www.jwatch.org/jw201006100000001/2010/06/10/spotligh...