Life Done Right™

Patents were designed to protect an invention for a limited time in exchange for divulging the know-how that makes it work. That’s a good thing, the reasoning goes, because it inspires people to risk their time and money in pursuit of the novel and the monetary rewards that go with it. But what if people’s lives are at stake? Should a company that owns a patent be able to charge whatever the hell they feel like because they can, regardless of whether a majority of patients could not afford to pay for the treatment they desperately need?

Genetech has what looks like a winning patent in their intellectual property vault. It’s a drug called Avastin that’s used to treat colon cancer. Now it appears it may also be effective against breast and lung cancer. But check out the price tag: $100,000 a year.

Here’s the deal: why doesn’t the Federal government take our tax dollars and seed this kind of research so they have a stake in the intellectual property that results from it? If there’s a research gusher that produces a viable patent, then the royalty rate can be controlled by the government and made affordable. It works for affordable housing.

I’m tired of reading the pharmaceutical company’s standard line that charging excess amounts for drugs is required to help pay for the years of research. When do profits outweigh human life? If your sole motivation is to make money, then maybe you need to rethink your humanity. It’s not about the money. It’s about the feeling of human connection. Without it, I don’t care how much fricking money you have, you’re just a worthless selfish bully.

Now stop bothering me. I’m busy patenting the scent of my own farts before some other smuck gets a monopoly on my essence. You think I’m kidding? Well get this, the U.S. military just might be able to use it as a silent but deadly weapon in their war on terror. Dick Cheney, right this moment, is testing the weapon himself. So stand back, while I let it rip! I wouldn’t want anybody to get hurt.

Disclaimer: Dick Cheney is a man who purports to be the Vice President of the United States. He, to the best of my knowledge, does not own or claim to own any insider knowledge of my company that would allow him to set up a blind trust like Bill Frist for his financial benefit. He’s too busy hunting for donkeys in Texas.

Doctors are excited about the prospect of Avastin, a drug already widely used for colon cancer, as a crucial new treatment for breast and lung cancer, too. But doctors are cringing at the price the maker, Genentech, plans to charge for it: about $100,000 a year.

That price, about double the current level as a colon cancer treatment, would raise Avastin to an annual cost typically found only for medicines used to treat rare diseases that affect small numbers of patients. But Avastin, already a billion-dollar drug, has a potential patient pool of hundreds of thousands of people — which is why analysts predict its United States sales could grow nearly sevenfold to $7 billion by 2009.

A Cancer Drug (Avastin) Shows Promise, at a Price That Many Can’t Pay
By ALEX BERENSON
New York Times, February 15, 2006