Why are drug prices so high? Investigating the outdated US patent system | Priti Krishtel

TED Health

TED

Health & Fitness, Fitness, Shoshana Ungerleider, Medicine, How To Be Healthier, Ted Shoshana, Ted Talks Health

4.2 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 20 April 2021

⏱️ 13 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Between 2006 and 2016, the number of drug patents granted in the United States doubled -- but not because there was an explosion in invention or innovation. Drug companies have learned how to game the system, accumulating patents not for new medicines but for small changes to existing ones, which allows them to build monopolies, block competition and drive prices up. Health justice lawyer Priti Krishtel sheds light on how we've lost sight of the patent system's original intent -- and offers five reforms for a redesign that would serve the public and save lives.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Ted Audio Collective
0:11.0	You're listening to Ted Health, I'm Elise Hugh, Patent Law.
0:14.5	You might think, oh, this is going to be a snooze fest, but you'd be wrong.
0:18.4	In today's talk from Ted Women in 2019, Health Justice Advocate Preeti Creestyle unpacks
0:23.4	the arcane network of drug patents, why they drive up our treatment prices, and how to
0:28.5	reform this outdated system to spur more invention and potentially save lives.
0:34.5	Hey, listener, a quick favor.
0:38.0	We are conducting an audience survey, and we'd be really grateful if you could take just
0:41.7	a few minutes to respond.
0:43.4	Please visit survey.prx.org slash health to take the survey today.
0:49.9	That's survey.prx.org slash health, thanks.
0:55.7	For my husband, it was love at first sight.
1:01.0	Here's what happened.
1:02.8	Years ago, Rudy, who I had strictly put in the friend zone at the time, came over to my
1:09.2	house and met my dad, a pharmaceutical scientist who had just retired after bringing a drug to
1:15.4	market.
1:17.0	My dad said, you probably wouldn't have heard of it.
1:20.4	It's for IPF, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.
1:25.4	We paused for a long time, and then he said, that's the disease that took my father's
1:31.4	life 15 years ago.
1:34.8	Rudy says that this is the moment he fell in love with my father.
1:43.6	Even though it was too late for my dad to save his, he felt that destiny had delivered
	...

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