Lipitor (atorvastatin) is a well-known drug for lowering blood cholesterol. It happens to be the biggest selling (legal) drug of all times. The Lipitor patent expires on November 30, 2011. That expiration will open the generic-drug flood gates and nourish profusely an already thorny patent patch.
Pfizer Inc., the owner of the Lipitor patent, is the largest pharmaceutical company in the world. Headquartered in New York City with research facilities in Groton, Connecticut, its annual sales are $68B. Lipitor, alone, accounts for $10B of those sales. How would you like to be the CEO and have that problem facing you?
For sales comparison, the annual consumption of aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) amounts to about 16 tons, 80 million of those little pills consumed in some form or another each year. Total annual sales for aspirin are about $2B. However, that 2B$ is distributed across hundreds of companies. And Lipitor brings in $10B annually, solely to Pfizer. That’s a patent you might wish you had your name on.
The Lipitor patent was issued in October 1999. Since then, Pfizer has touted (probably correctly) that Lipitor is “the best-selling treatment for lowering cholesterol and the best-selling pharmaceutical product of any kind in the world.” The original patent was due to expire in 2016, but in 2004, the Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT) submitted to the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) prior art wherein PUBPAT claimed that the Lipitor patent was “anticipated by earlier work of other inventors and should never have been granted.” (I discussed in a separate article the concept of “prior art” in patents.) The Lipitor prior art case went back and forth for a year and finally Pfizer “won,” but in doing so conceded to give up its original broader claims. (As I also explained, patent claims are decided by the court, not the USPTO.)
Ranbaxy, was the first pharmaceutical company to challenge the Pfizer patent. Thus, Ranbaxy may get a lucrative six months deal as the sole generic manufacturer of the drug once the Pfizer patent expires. That exclusive deal is the basis for bringing even more lawyers into the Lipitor world.
There is no end to this story.
What does Lipitor have to do with the day-to-day technology wizard, other than illustrating the thorny problems of patent longevity and prior art? Lipitor illustrates a poignant new issue: patents can be lucrative – to the company, but not necessarily proportionately to the individual. In most cases, the individual scientist is obscured and the patent rights belong to the company that pays for the research. It is a business model ingrained long ago by Thomas Edison who took personal credit for everything his company touched. I know that in my own situation, five of my patents are currently used in government systems that involve billions of dollars annually. The contributory value of my five patents is buried deep within those systems and difficult to quantify, particularly because no one wants to do so. I received nary a dollar in royalty compensation for any of them. Such is the fate of most technologists who work for large companies, especially those companies that retain their own staff of lawyers.
So be it. I have no regrets. I knew the terms in advance and agreed to them. The company compensated me for the research and I had a great time working on every project. I am delighted to see my patents working daily to help secure the safety of every US citizen. Self-fulfillment pays in its own currency. Technology wizards know this.
To discover, to be the first person in the entire world ever to do something, to document that achievement in a patent, is its own currency. I did not go into physics for the money. My advice? Relish each accomplishment and keep your gyroscope fixed. If you make a lot of money with your patent, that may be positive to you. (Believe me, it does not always work that way.) If you get paid adequately to do the things you love, then there is nothing wrong with that. Patents expire, rewards are ephemeral, but the sense of accomplishment is eternal.