Pharma Patents: Healing The Rights

The development of a new drug is a sophisticated process...

Scientists synthesize thousands of substances that could potentially become medicines. According to sources, only one of ten thousand obtained substances reveal properties that may be useful in treating a disease. After that preclinical and clinical studies follow, registration with the health authorities and finally, the drug goes to the patients. Pharmaceutical companies spend hundreds of millions or even billions of US dollars to find a substance useful for treating a particular disease. Development of a drug may take ten years and often more. Sometimes the obtained drug reveals unexpected properties as occurred with Viagra which was initially intended to treat ischemic heart disease but suddenly revealed other unexpected properties, thanks to which it became widely known.