title: Pharmaceutical research and development and the patent system.
abstract: The pharmaceutical industry routinely exaggerates its expenditures on research and development, but it does spend billions annually. But not all R&D is equally important. The patent-based system provides incentives to invest heavily in marketing and marketing-related measures masquerading as research. Innovators are rewarded with a marketing monopoly, and this drives what kind of research they do and what practices they follow to profit from their products. It is a system that creates incentives for marketing more than for research, which inevitably drives the marketing mission to corrupt the R&D process.
authors.affiliation: james.love@cptech.org
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Love
mesh_terms: D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000191:economics* / Q000458:organization & administration; D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic / Q000191:economics; D004345:Drug Industry / Q000191:economics* / Q000458:organization & administration; D006801:Humans; D040541:Marketing / Q000191:economics; D010330:Patents as Topic