Changes

:''"Only price discrimination by the patent holder allows it to reach potential consumers who could not otherwise pay the monopoly price for the drug."''

*Price control legislation would eliminate the benefits of holding a patent in the pharmaceutical industry, thus reducing incentives to innovate.

:''"The high initial but low marginal costs of drug development leave many groups clamoring to hasten the introduction of low-cost generics. Right now, the rates of return for pharmaceutical firms have been high, but those reflect the riskiness of the venture given the free entry into the industry and, some would argue, the implicit protection against competition supplied by the stringent set of nonnegotiable FDA licensing requirements."''

*The benefits of patent reform for pharmaceutical industry will be outweighed by the losses incurred by patent holders.

:''"A direct frontal assault on the patent system generates little support given the social demand for innovation. But indirect attacks on the patent system could escape widespread social condemnation while eroding the protection that the patent system can supply its holders. It is therefore critical that we recognize that the past successes in biomedical innovation arise because the gains from innovation exceed any small dislocations from the so-called anticommons...''"