Making money should never be placed above the lives of human beings.
There is Big Money in Big Pharmaceuticals. Even those who lobby for the global multi-billion dollar industry don’t deny that. And, pandemic or no pandemic, there is going to be a lot of money made out of Covid-19- related medicine, supplies and, if one were produced, a vaccine. One of the ways the giant medicine makers protect and prolong their revenue streams is by taking out patents on their formulae.
One of the ways the giant medicine makers protect and prolong their revenue streams is by taking out patents on their formulae. But in this country, claim activists, that patent protection could spark a second coronavirus crisis as it would limit access to treatments and vaccines because it would price them out of the reach of both ordinary people and our health system.
In countries like India, a thriving market in “generic medicines” has developed, because their patent legislation does not afford cast-iron protection to the original formulator. Even in this country, we are seeing generics playing a growing role in medicine, at a fraction of the cost of the originals.
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