Adaptive Innovation: How Patent Extension leads to More, Better and Safer Medicines -- IFPMA

Geneva, 03 Feb 2006

The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations (IFPMA) is pleased to announce the publication of its new booklet entitled: Adaptive Innovation, Intellectual Property and the Public Interest: how Patent Extension leads to More, Better and Safer Medicines.

IFPMA Director General Harvey Bale commented: "This booklet explains how improvements on existing products can lead to real public health benefits, including new, improved or unexpected therapeutic benefits compared to the original formulation of the medicine. Extended patent protection to cover such improvements gives important incentives to developers to refine existing products and so provide patients with better treatment options."

The booklet uses a number of real-life case studies, including Pfizer's Zithromax® and Procardia®, Warner Lambert's Neurontin®, GlaxoSmithKline's Agenerase™ and Wyeth's Effexor®, where R&D did not stop with the molecule in its original form, as first patented. Subsequent improvements included reformulation to allow for slower release of the active ingredient, so reducing the number of doses to be taken, aiding patient compliance, reducing side-effects and even adding a new indication. In one case, a new manufacturing process made a useful but difficult-to-produce medicine into a viable product.

Booklet available online at: http:///www.ifpma.org/documents/NR4234/Ad apting%20Innovation%20int.pdf About the IFPMA

The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations is a non-profit, non-governmental organisation representing national industry associations and companies from both developed and developing countries. Member companies of the IFPMA are research-based pharmaceutical, biotech and vaccine companies. For More Information Please Contact
Guy Willis
Director of Communications, IFPMA
Ch. Louis-Dunant, 15
P.O. Box 195
1211 Geneva 20, Switzerland
Email: g.willis@ifpma.org
Tel: +41 (22) 338 32 00
Fax: +41 (22) 338 32 99

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