Pharmaceutical Industry Near Collapse Because It Is Stupid and Incredibly Bad at Its Business

Plug the world's tiniest violin into the world's largest amplifier: the pharmaceutical industry is in a state of "panic," the New York Times reported yesterday, because...because...well, because it is hopelessly idiotic. No, really, that is why. For instance:

This year alone, because of patent expirations, the drug industry will lose control over more than 10 megamedicines whose combined annual sales have neared $50 billion.

This is a sobering reversal for an industry that just a few years ago was the world’s most profitable business sector but is now under pressure to reinvent itself and shed its dependence on blockbuster drugs.

By "reinvent itself," the Times means "do what it was supposed to be doing all along." This $50 billion crisis is not caused by the government unexpectedly seizing the drug formulas and giving them out for free. It is caused by the drug companies' patents reaching their long-anticipated expiration dates.

Patents last for 20 years. Things can be a little draggy at the start, OK, but let's be very nice to the drug companies and call it a decade. So this sudden terrible problem has been obvious and on schedule for at least 10 years.

It honestly is that simple and that stupid. The pharmaceutical industry turned all its energy toward wringing as much money as possible out of the drugs it already had, and quit making any sort of plans that would lead to having a new (and, you know: medically useful) batch of drugs under patent in the future, when the patents on the old batch expired.