Drug Patents
Reasonable suggestion. The life of a drug patent begins when the formula is submitted for patenting. After that, the FDA eats up a significant amount of the patent life by requiring exhaustive clinical testing. A setback can restart the testing process. Sometimes, the drug is a dead end and useless. When the drug is finally approved the remaining life of the patent can be too short to recover the development and testing costs without jacking the price of the drug up to hundreds or thousands of dollars per dose or treatment.
In this case, I would suggest that the patent protection begins after acceptance by FDA. This gives the drug manufacture enough time to recoup expenses and also continue R&D. The patent can be pending during the test and approval phases to provide IP protection. This could help reduce the cost of treatment.
