Stealing Patents is Like Poaching

by Patricia Green, published on Feb. 1, 2007 by MedsAbroad.com

After reading an article in the National Post (Canada), I was reminded of poachers. Let's step back a bit here.

The article was about Apotex, the generic pharmaceutical manufacturing company based in Canada. Recently, Apotex stepped on Bristol Myers-Squibb's (BMS) toes rather a lot when it made up a large, generic batch of BMS's Plavix™ blood-thinner medication, without a license. Apotex then, while fighting BMS in court over the right to manufacture the generic, distributed about 6 months worth of the product onto the American market at generic prices. BMS was pretty upset about this, and a US court ordered Apotex to cease this practice. Too late, though, as those pills had flooded the market and deeply undercut BMS's brand-name prices and market share.

How does this make me think of a poacher? Well, it's not too far-fetched to think of Plavix™ as an elephant. It's a very big product (with sales of over $5.9 billion, worldwide, in 2005 alone). It's also a "scarce" product, because it had been manufactured by only one company, BMS, which kept the market supplied at a profitable price-point. So along comes Apotex, wanting a piece of that elephant, but unable to obtain the legal right to it as it is owned by someone else. What do they do? They break into the elephant preserve and steal the tusks right off the beast. They haven't got the entire elephant, just a valuable piece.

Sure the tusks will grow back, but the elephant is going to suffer with the loss of an important part of himself while they do. So, too, will BMS suffer the loss of the American market-price for Plavix™ while it waits for all the legal hurdles to be leapt over and Apotex to be fined for its violation of patent. And imagine if everyone who was capable went out and poached their own elephant? So long elephants; or, not to torture this metaphor too much, good-bye new, innovative brand-name products.

Eventually, the elephant preserve - in this case, the patent to Plavix™ - will be open for generic manufacturers. But in the meantime, Bristol Myers-Squibb has to stay vigilant, because one never knows when a poacher is lurking in the neighborhood.

So, Apotex is like a poacher. Some cultures find poachers a daily necessity for their livelihood, others - generally the ones with more worldly goods and food - look at them as a dangerous pest.

What is Apotex in relationship to your society? That's for you to decide.

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