How do drugmakers extend their monopolies on life-saving drugs even as their patents and market exclusivities are on the cusp of expiring?

Let’s look at the story behind Suboxone, a drug that helps patients recovering from opioid addiction. (1/5)

Knowing that low-cost generic tablets would become available once Suboxone’s exclusivity expired, its drugmaker created Suboxone Film, a dissolvable film formulation of the drug. (2/5)

By the time generic Suboxone tablets were able to enter the market, drugmaker Indivior had pulled its tablet version from the market and converted the vast majority of patients to this film version, for which there was no generic substitute. (3/5)

This widely-used practice is known as “product hopping”. To prevent it, we must fix the failures of the U.S. patent system to ensure it only gives patents for true inventions - not ones that are business strategies to prolong monopolies and high prices. (4/5)

From drug development to drug access, the U.S. patent system is a bottleneck to getting people the medicines they need. (5/5)

Read the facts in our latest brief, Patents 101: https://www.i-mak.org/patents-101