Eflornithine Pros And Cons

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Pharmaceuticals are arguably one of the most contentious of all goods and services traded in the market. While medicines are as much a necessity as foods and water, they require more technical expertise and official approbation in the manufacture. Above all, they carry a moral weight that most market products do not (The Economist, 2014). This idea of moral can be linked to the recurring debate over whether a good health (which is represented by medicines, in this case) should be considered a basic human right, or just a normal commodity. A large portion of such controversy actually lies in an existence of drug patents: should we promote for longer-lasting patents or should we have their duration shortened? Why do we need a patent on almost …show more content…

This privilege had dramatically driven up the price of medication, making medicines unaffordable to the poor. This problem—also known as health inequality—is now listed as one of the major issues in developing countries. There are many documented cases showing that poor people are losing out as a result of drug companies focusing on the most marketable medicines rather than the most urgently needed. For instance, let us consider the story of the drug eflornithine, which was originally developed in 1980s to treat cancer. The drug turned out to be ineffective as an anticancer agent, but it was found to be effective against sleeping sickness, a disease that accounts for thousands of deaths per year in Africa. However, Hoechst Marion Roussel (now Aventis), the company that developed it, ceased its manufacture in 1999, citing marketing failure (MacDonald, …show more content…

As long as it still causes a huge gap of disparity, I cannot say that I am in favor of the system. Patents exist to reward creative inventors by granting them an exclusive right to make use of their own ideas, on the basis that doing so will give a strong impetus for innovation. Our goal should be to find the point where the cost and benefit are in balance, which can be considered as the so-called social

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