 Prizes for Pharmaceuticals? Mitigating the social ineffectiveness of the current pharmaceutical patent arrangementValbona Muzaka Third World Quarterly, 2013, vol. 34, issue 1, 151-169 Abstract: We routinely refer to pharmaceutical patents as intellectual property rights. The argument in this article is that pharmaceutical patents represent a ‘bargain’ between government, business and society. The pharmaceutical patent system constitutes a social institution with social goals that go well beyond solely providing incentives to proprietary pharmaceutical companies to develop innovative drugs. Therefore we need to assess this institution in terms of what is referred to here as its social effectiveness, that is, its ability to accomplish the social goals it was set up to achieve. Such assessment has to take into account the fact that the pharmaceutical patent system has now become global, a development that has made its social ineffectiveness more apparent and worrisome. The severity and gravity of unmet global and local public health needs compels urgent scrutiny of the pharmaceutical patent system, as well as of alternatives to it, such as prizes for pharmaceuticals. Date: 2013 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:ctwqxx:v:34:y:2013:i:1:p:151-169 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2012.755009 Access Statistics for this article Third World Quarterly is currently edited by Shahid Qadir More articles in Third World Quarterly from Taylor & Francis Journals |
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