Friday, February 9, 2007

Biogenerics and Antitrust Law?

Here's a not so recent article on the biogenerics boom which provoked a thought:

"There's no way to 100 percent accurately reproduce the host that these compounds grow off of," said Casey Alexander, analyst for Gilford Securities. "Therefore it can never be functionally identical."

The only way for a biogeneric company to produce an exact copy of a brand-name biotech drugs, said Alexander, is to "sneak into the factory and to steal the host, which is illegal."


Is it possible that someday companies will be forced to license or turnover these hosts that produce off patent biotech drugs? I'm no expert in antitrust law but it seems to me there was a time when the Microsoft/Netscape case was unanticipated.

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