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FTC challenges 'junk' patents held by 10 drugmakers, incl Novo Nordisk's Ozempic

(www.cnbc.com)
152 points toomuchtodo | 1 comments | 30 Apr 24 21:06 UTC | HN request time: 0.253s | source
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akira2501 ◴[30 Apr 24 21:33 UTC] No.40216636[source]▶
Good.

They patented inhalers for a second time. It's the exact same drug. The only thing that changed was the propellant. It went from R-12 to R-134a. Everyone who had to switch out R-12 from refrigeration to drug manufacturing switched to R-134a. There was absolutely _nothing_ novel about it.

It was _criminal_ to allow them the second patent for just the propellant change. It took generic $5 inhalers off the market and replaced them with $95 inhalers. It was was one of the most corrupt swindles I've ever personally seen.

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RheingoldRiver ◴[30 Apr 24 21:52 UTC] No.40216858[source]▶
> It took generic $5 inhalers off the market and replaced them with $95 inhalers.

OOTL, what is stopping companies from making generics of the older version & patients just not using the new version?

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chemeng ◴[30 Apr 24 21:55 UTC] No.40216891[source]▶
It is illegal to use the previous propellant, so they can’t be manufactured anymore.
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chroma ◴[30 Apr 24 22:00 UTC] No.40216938[source]▶
Where can I read more about this? If that’s true, it seems like a problem of over-regulation, not drug companies being exploitative.
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1. pessimizer ◴[30 Apr 24 22:18 UTC] No.40217119[source]▶
That's just your bias.

> Several inhaler manufacturers formed the International Pharmaceutical Aerosol Consortium, a lobbying group dedicated to, among other goals, persuading lawmakers and regulators to ban inhalers with CFCs. The group spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, and in 2005, the FDA ruled that CFC inhalers would be phased out beginning in 2009. As a result of the ban, newer albuterol products — including Proventil HFA (which was approved in 1996), Ventolin HFA (approved in 2001), and ProAir HFA (approved in 2004) — would be free from competition from inexpensive CFC-containing generics. HFA inhalers were protected by new patents on both the HFA propellants and the devices themselves, and they generally cost much more than generic CFC inhalers.

"Product Hopping in the Drug Industry - Lessons from Albuterol"

N Engl J Med. 2022 Sep 29;387(13):1153-1156. doi: 10.1056/NEJMp2208613. Epub 2022 Sep 24.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36155425/

[pdf] https://wvpublic.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Tu-2022-Wout...