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Chapter 16: Patents and Technological Change |
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A Chinese manufacturer is producing a low-cost, generic version of the AIDS drug AZT. It can do so because the Chinese patent has expired. More strikingly, Chinese regulators granted a Chinese pharmaceutical company, Desano Shanghai, permission to make a generic copy of a powerful anti-AIDS drug, ddI, patented in China by Bristol-Myers Squibb, a U.S. firm. A Squibb spokesperson said that the company's Chinese patent only covered the drug in tablet form, so that the Chinese firm's generic version is exempt because it is a powder.
Some lawyers speculated that the approval was part of Chinese efforts to pressure foreign companies to lower the prices of imported drugs, especially those for fighting AIDS. They noted that Beijing had previously allowed domestic production to drive foreign companies to the bargaining table.
Desano Shanghai expects to obtain permission to produce two more anti-AIDS drugs, which would allow it to make a generic version of the "cocktail" treatment—groups of drugs given in succession—that has been widely used in the west. The Chinese-made cocktail would sell for about $600 per year compared to the original version that sells for $10,000 per year in the United States.
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