Some off-patent drugs have so few side effects that they are now available without a prescription.
But other off-patent drugs are doing less well without intellectual property law's protection.
Cipla, a manufacturer of off-patent drugs in India, says that it plans to supply the drug cheaply next year.
In an interview, Jennifer Cohn, medical coordinator for MSF's access campaign, said the ruling reinforces the idea that India won't patent drugs that are "not significantly innovative, " leaving generics companies free to produce many products for domestic use or for export to other countries where the drugs aren't protected by patent.
Without the protection of a patent, drugs lose at least 50% of their value in the U.S. to generic competitors.
We can extend patent protection on drugs so that profits can be maintained ad infinitum.
HIV-AIDS. As a result, companies such as Merck and Eli Lilly have licensed local manufacturers to produce their patent-protected drugs.
Soon, most pharmaceutical companies will no longer have the luxury of relying on blockbuster, patent-protected drugs to bolster their balance sheets.
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America finally gave enough ground for an agreement that should enable poor countries to override patent protection on drugs when public-health needs justify it.
But the high prices of many patent-protected drugs generate the revenues needed to underwrite the massive research and development expenses that the inventors of brand-name drugs incur.
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Lilly's fall emphasizes a key weakness of many big pharmaceutical companies: The expiration of a major patent allows generic drugs to enter the market and usually eat away most of the branded drug's sales within two years.
Instead, Merck is grappling with patent expirations for cardiac drugs like Prinivil and Mevacor.
Four of Merck's drugs faced patent expirations last year, and their sales have virtually vanished.
Not only are earnings prospectively explosive, but patent protection on major drugs extends out for most of this decade.
Thus, as it will inevitably lose patent coverage for its drugs, none will be crippling to their overall sales.
With most major U.S. pharmaceutical companies facing patent expiration on blockbuster drugs, earnings expectations for the group have remained modest.
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Several blockbuster drugs lost patent protection in 2006, such as the statin Zocor from Merck and the antidepressant Zoloft from Pfizer.
The generic business is, after all, becoming increasingly tough as big pharmaceutical companies aggressively fight to keep patent protection on their drugs.
The drug giant, which employs more than 57, 000 people, will lose its five best-selling drugs to patent expirations in the next two years.
Yes, Merck will lose patent protection on several drugs this year.
Marketing also plays a vital role when drugs lose patent protection.
But Merck (nyse: MRK - news - people ) and Bristol-Myers are both losing several of their biggest drugs to patent expirations, with little coming through their pipelines.
By June, it will lose patent protection on four drugs--Vasotec and Prinivil for hypertension, Mevacor for high cholesterol and Prilosec, which it shares with AstraZeneca (nyse: AZN - news - people), for ulcers.
It doesn't face patent expirations on key drugs for years (this is a result of the bad track record of Hassan's predecessors at inventing new medicines), and sugammadex, a new anesthesia drug that came from acquiring Organon, looks like a very important medicine.
Companies expected their drugs would lose patent protection and go generic, as is happening now.
The last two are major beneficiaries of big pharma's patent expirations, because generic drugs are where they make their money.
Over the past three years its American Depositary Receipts more than doubled as an increasing number of drugs came off patent.
The year, the last of the top 15 most widely used drugs will lose patent protection, according to IMS Health.
Large pharmaceutical pipelines have dried up and many of the blockbuster drugs have lost patent protection over the past couple of years.
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Like some peers, it faces a patent cliff with very profitable drugs facing competition from generics, but Lilly spends aggressively to develop replacements.
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