Latuda Patent Extended to 2024???

Discussion in 'Sunovion' started by anonymous, Feb 21, 2018 at 3:37 PM.

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  1. anonymous

    anonymous Guest

    Dumb, dummy
     

  2. anonymous

    anonymous Guest

    Nothing could be more true. I am with you! Most people are with you except for the dumb asses that love to kiss ass.
     
  3. I empathize with the sentiments of the Sunovion reps and employees in this thread, but as a patient taking Latuda I have to say that you all need to step back and look at the bigger picture. Is this drug on the market to benefit you or me? The extension of the patent would completely screw patients with outrageous costs, making it damn near impossible for many people in serious need of a drug like this to receive required help. Take a step back, look in the mirror, and ask yourself if you really think it's worth bitching about so much that the patent is expiring. Sunovion had a good run with this patent, but now it's time to let it go generic and make a fantastic medicine affordable to the masses.

    The thousands of dollars I have paid for moderately low doses of Latuda is absolutely ridiculous, but I am extremely lucky that I can cover the costs. There are so many more out there who cannot, and we are the ones for whom the drug was formulated -- not the sales reps. Don't think for a minute that you are entitled to ride an endless wave of monumental profit at the detriment of mental health patients.
     
  4. anonymous

    anonymous Guest

    Really dumb question...it is to benefit us. Sunovion isn’t a non-profit company and would not have created Latuda if it wasn’t profitable
     
  5. anonymous

    anonymous Guest

    So Sunovion created the drug for profit and nothing else? Guess I should just keep buying the pills but stop taking them if they're not for my benefit...

    Patents exist for a reason and expire for a reason, and when a company puts a markup on a drug like Latuda has, you will find a hell of a lot more consumers support the expiration than there are Sunovion employees who don't.

    Put yourself in the shoes of someone who needs the medication. If we play the game of averages, this person will likely have a rough time working and affording health insurance, and the more severe their mental illness the harder it will be to pay approximately $2,400 for a 30 day supply (my discount card took that down to a whopping $2,195).

    Don't get me wrong, I'm all for capitalism and profiting from hard work (that's what lets me afford my medication). However, I really have a hard time feeling pity for this group when I see the struggles of my peers who aren't as fortunate as me. Those are the people who have had problems with other medications but don't have the insurance or salary to cover Latuda. Sorry, but their plight wins out.

    You have all done a great job convincing psychiatrists that Latuda is a wonderful drug, and I agree that it is. However, the price point makes it inaccessible to many who need it.
     
  6. anonymous

    anonymous Guest

    Yes, they created it only for profit. I don’t know of any company who creates a drug to give away so the patients get treatment. Sorry to burst your bubble. They went for the indications that would get them the most profit.
     
  7. anonymous

    anonymous Guest

    You missed my comment about capitalism, but that's OK, we'll skip ahead.

    What I'm failing to understand is the disconnect between drug reps and the health care industry, of which Sunovion is a part. Health care is an industry established to care for health (can't put it any plainer than that). Yes, there are profit margins, but a medicine is formulated in certain ways such that it relieves symptoms, cures diseases, etc., better than other drugs or in different ways. Hospitals provide new treatments that are innovative. Doctors are trained on new procedures and diagnostic methods. These are all part of the health care process and the underlying reason is to help the patient.

    Make money -- that's fine -- but don't try to pretend that drug companies aren't a key part of a process for improving patients' quality of life.

    Have you put yourself in the shoes of the patient I described earlier? Tell me that patient's thoughts on who Latuda should benefit more.
     
  8. anonymous

    anonymous Guest

    I think you are not understanding capitalism. The point is not just to make some money for a little while and then reduce the price to help patients. It’s to make as much money as possible for as long as possible. For companies, health care is not about helping patients, it’s about making money. For us reps, it’s about making money. I get the patient doesn’t feel that way, but that’s not why we are here. We all say that’s why we are here but it’s to make money to feed our kids. If Sunovion didn’t pay me, I wouldn’t be here. You are extremely naive to the business world. Sounds like socialism is more your thing.
    The way drug companies bring drugs to the market is they take old compounds that have failed previous clinical trials and find a disease that it may treat that will make money for the company. They don’t go looking for a way to treat a specific disease and bust their ass to find a cure. Dasotraline is a perfect example. It has failed every trial except for add, which it is ok at treating. Should be good for a couple hundred mil.
     
  9. anonymous

    anonymous Guest

    Socialism vs capitalism is not the point of this discussion, though I will tell you that I work in and support a very capitalism-centric industry -- stop painting assumptions on my views and stick to the topic at hand.

    You're inadvertently supporting the notion that patents should be very finite with the assertion that formulations are near accidental for the domain in which they are prescribed.

    Patents in my industry serve a similarly finite purpose, *plus* they state intended outcome from inception. Patent law exists as a way to protect innovation, so if a patent is filed on an accidental or side-effectual outcome, why should it offer protection if not for Sunovion to continue innovating in BP treatment

    Whether or not Sunovion intended for Latuda to successfully treat BP, that's how the cards have landed. Latuda has become a great treatment and consumers have benefitted from it. However they deserve the benefit of the US patent system to drive innovation *as well as* the free-market system to drive competition. If we can call formulation with an unanticipated prescription domain innovation, let's do that for the sake of this argument and say that innovation was indeed achieved. Now, we have two ways of looking at this -- either Sunovion continues to innovate in BP treatment with Latuda (which puts the patients as the beneficiary) or they move on to finding the next formulation with unintended purpose (which takes the focus off of Latuda innovation and supports patent expiry). Which is it and how does that support your argument?
     
  10. anonymous

    anonymous Guest

    Your rambling is funny. How do you fund future innovation without reaping all the benefits afforded to you for the last innovation? What I hear you saying is you’ve made enough off of Latuda, stop making money off of it and give it to everyone that needs it by letting other companies who didn’t do the trials copy your medicine and sell it cheaper even though the patent isn’t expiring for years. While you’re doing that, find the money to create a new drug to make money off of for a short time until you start giving it away to patients before the patent expires. Is that your request? Share the wealth. Give everyone an opportunity to make money and get healthy for free. Sounds perfectly reasonable....in Russia.
     
  11. anonymous

    anonymous Guest

    That's not socialism, it's free market capitalism when patent law's protection expires.

    I and many other patients were looking forward to being able to afford a better quality of life when the patent expired this year. Nobody expects a patent holder to forego their protection before that period expires, but the patent extension needs to be justified by continued innovation. I assume you're familiar with that and don't think that it's just an extension granted solely to continue reaping profit.

    A patent's protection is not necessarily intended to fund unrelated innovation, though that is an expected outcome. Instead it's granted so that the patent holder can build upon the patented intellectual property.

    So, aside from telling me that I'm rambling, let's discuss this innovation. Is Sunovion innovating for the patient's benefit?
     
  12. anonymous

    anonymous Guest

    No we are not innovating for bpd patients. As I stated earlier, we are here for profits not patients. You don’t seem to get that. Maybe give Canada a try.
    The patent was not, as you say, extended. When filing for that patent years ago, we were given a date that it expires. Please let us have our drug until the patent office says it’s time to give it up to freeloader generic companies.
     
  13. anonymous

    anonymous Guest

    Calm down. I've never once said that Sunovion should give up patent protection earlier than the patent dictates. I'm trying to ask civil questions and you seem to be taking an offensive position.

    This whole thread was around the possibility of a 2024 extension and I was expressing my views on that. If the patent does expire in 2018/2019 based on the most recent patent, there's not much to be said other than that's how patent law works. I will be happy because it benefits the patients' quality of life, you will be disappointed because it affects the reps' quality of life.

    We both have our reactions to this, but when the population of patients outweighs the population of reps, *and* when the affordability of a successful drug can be a matter of life and death to severely bipolar patients, I will stick to my position.
     
  14. anonymous

    anonymous Guest

    It’s not a possibility of an extension to 2024.... it is 2024 based on the “most recent patent.” Double check your patents. They aren’t doing this to screw the patients. The patent has been 2024 for awhile.
     
  15. anonymous

    anonymous Guest

    I never assumed the intention was to screw the patients, but that's a true side effect. Approximately $28,800 is the cost paid each year by a patient suffering from a chemical imbalance who wants to reduce their risk of killing themselves. For that chemically imbalanced patient who may struggle to find a decent-paying job, in an environment where pre-existing conditions are now a problem for insurance coverage, yes, we're venturing into "screwed" territory. But I get that it's about your salary and not that patient's life.

    So is it Jan 2019 or 2024? There was so much bickering in this thread amongst the reps that I couldn't tell who had the right information.
     
  16. anonymous

    anonymous Guest

    I guess we''ll have to wait and see about the patent. Btw, if your job were in jeopardy of being threatened, you might be relieved if it no longer were as well. Patients are people, and employees are people too. It doesn't mean the employees don't care about the patients if they are relieved that their job is feeling potentially more secure than it had been.
     
  17. anonymous

    anonymous Guest

     
  18. anonymous

    anonymous Guest

    so whats the deal? no noise in months, 2024 or what?
     
  19. anonymous

    anonymous Guest

    Have you been in a coma for the last month? Not 2024, better guess is 20-24 days. We are done. Will the last person out the door please turn off the lights and leave the key under the mat? Best of luck Sunovion and you can keep the stool sample.