Drug patenting would be an effective tool to encourage introducing new drugs for prevention and treatment of diseases. The main goal of drug patenting is to protect all the interests of inventor and try to create a secure and confident way to encourage those who are involved in pharmaceutical industries. However, some pharmaceutical companies by using different strategies like, combination, finding new medical use, new formulation or slight changes in old drugs, abuse this tool to extend their patents (patent ever-greening) and obtain more economic advantages. These types of drugs, due to lack of full requirements of an invention such as novelty and inventive step, cannot be considered as new drugs, therefore, cannot be patented. Pharmaceutical patent ever-greening is in contradicted with the spirit of the innovation, invention and commercialization. By preventing the introduction of generic drugs into the market, it might endanger public health via continue selling of brand drugs with exorbitant prices. Pharmaceutical patent ever-greening is a global issue because practical approaches to patent ever-greening are currently seen in both developing and developed countries and it imposes a substantial burden on the public health. For this reason, passing a law to ban ever-greening of pharmaceutical patents is essential in all countries of in the world.
Keywords
TRIPS Agreement, US Food and Drug Administration, WHO Essential Medicines List, Public Health, Patent, Ever-greening, Drug Modification, Combined Drugs, Fixed-dose Combinations, Direct-to-Consumer Advertising.
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