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53 Vand. L. Rev. 2245 (2000)
The Pharmaceutical Industry and World Intellectual Property Standards

handle is hein.journals/vanlr53 and id is 2273 raw text is: The Pharmaceutical Industry and World Intellectual Property Standards F. M. Scherer* When I was a high school student during the late 1940s, the first so-called wonder drugs-initially penicillin and then the broad-spectrum antibiotics such as tetracycline-were entering the U.S. market. From their profitable experience developing the broad- spectrum antibiotics, the leading pharmaceutical companies of America and Europe acquired a strong research orientation that led to a cascade of new therapeutic entities, including additional anti- infectives, vaccines, diuretics, and then other agents to reduce heart attack risks, tranquilizers, antidepressants, birth control pills, anti-fungal agents, immunosuppressants, cortico-steroids, AIDS inhibitors, powerful pain relief agents, and many other agents effective against specific diseases. Thanks to this pharma- ceutical revolution, life spans have been prolonged, the incidence and duration of hospital stays have been reduced, and the quality of countless citizens' lives has been enhanced.' The benefits of modern pharmaceutical therapy have accrued mainly to the citizens of the world's more prosperous nations. United Nations staff have estimated that average purchases per capita of modern pharmaceutical products (excluding traditional * Aetna Professor of Public Policy Emeritus, Harvard University; Visiting Professor, Princeton University. 1. See FRANK R LICHTENBERG, THE EFFECT OF PHARMACEUTICAL UTILIZATION AND INNOVATION ON HOSPITALIZATION AND MORTALITY 23, (National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. w5418, 1996) (estimating that a $1 increase in pharmaceutical purchases was associated on average with a $2.65 reduction in hospitalization expenditures), available at http:/papers.nber.org/papers/w5418. 2245