Patents, Health Disparities, and Medical Technology

Patents and Health Differences Between Countries

A patent is a set of exclusive rights guaranteed by a government or an authority to the inventor of a new product or a new manufacturing method, which could be exploited industrially for the benefit of the inventor and for a time-bound implementation.

Pharmaceutical patents relate to new medicinal products or production methods from pharmaceutical research.

The most commonly used method to reduce public pharmaceutical expenditure is the use of generic drugs, i.e., drugs that are developed after the brand-name drug's patent has expired. These are sold without a trademark, with a similar active ingredient, pharmaceutical form, composition, and equivalence to the reference brand drug.

The main advantage of generic drugs versus brand-name drugs is the lower cost, since generic drugs do not require investment in research, development, and promotion. Besides the price advantage, these drugs meet the same health standards as brand-name drugs. The disadvantages include the possible loss of active ingredients, employing similar but not as effective principles as the original. There is also the possibility that new side effects may appear, especially if research and development of new medicines by pharmaceutical companies is interrupted.

The health difference between a developed country and a developing country is that the former has a good healthcare system, usually free, with levels of professional competence in line with their economic situation, and where public pharmaceutical expenditure, even if significant, is not decisive. By contrast, an underdeveloped country with limited financial resources devotes much of its health budget to medicines to meet the primary health needs of its inhabitants. Countries in development frequently believe that pharmaceutical patents are "immoral" because they protect brand-name drugs from pharmaceutical companies, which, in the case of treatments for diseases like AIDS (with a high incidence in these countries), are very expensive.

Technological Advances in Medical Diagnostics

6.1 Invasive Techniques

• Blood and urine extraction for biochemical analysis to determine the constituents of the patient's body fluids.
• Biopsy is the surgical removal of a small portion of tissue for subsequent examination in the laboratory.
• Catheterization involves inserting a catheter (tube), usually into an artery in the groin or arm. When it reaches the heart, a substance opaque to X-rays is injected, allowing a radiographic image of the inside to be received through a screen.
• Endoscopy involves introducing an endoscope inside the body through a natural orifice or a surgical incision to visualize the inside of a hollow body cavity. This technique allows biopsy without further surgical intervention.