Medicines patents and neglected diseases: the double victimization of poverty in Brazil

Abstract

This work investigates the consequences of the patent system on public health from the implications on the production and development of medicines, starting from the object of study “neglected diseases” centered on the Brazilian context. As a method of approach, the deductive approach was chosen because it starts from concepts and norms that involve the right to health and medication, going through the economic, legal and political implications brought by patents, to then arrive at neglected diseases and identify the implications of this system about them. It was concluded that on neglected diseases, drug patents produce an oligopoly of pharmaceutical industries that artificially manipulate drug prices, work with the scarcity of raw materials only because they do not bring the desired profit and, consequently, the status is maintained of neglected disease due to the shortage of medicines and effective treatments. In addition, it makes diseases that were previously eradicated reappear by running out of supply in the public health system, generating a double victimization of the poor population because they are ignored by the pharmaceutical industry, which has no interest in producing medicines for a population that will not have the financial conditions to buy the drug.