just passed away yesterday.
Carl Camras, M.D., chairman of the UNMC Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, invented the world's most prescribed glaucoma drug -- an eye drop called Latanoprost that was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1996.
The drug is the first line of treatment for glaucoma. Unfortunately, Carl didn't see much of the money the drug made.
Carl married my friend Nancy, and they both lived in Riverside, CT before moving to Nebraska, where Carl worked at their medical center.
Carl's legacy has something to say about the bills instituted which affect physicians who make major discoveries while working for a hospital.
During Carl's intership at Columbia University, he and his mentor, Dr. Laszlo Z. Bito discovered a miracle drug to alleviate glaucoma symptoms.
The drug is Xalatan, a best-selling eyedrop for glaucoma. With $507 million in sales last year -- and the potential for billions more, most of it pure profit -- the four-year-old medicine is the equivalent of liquid gold for its manufacturer, the Pharmacia Corporation. The eyedrop earned Columbia University about $20 million in royalties last year, and it has made a millionaire of Dr. Bito as well.
Note: Carl received almost nothing of this profit. And neither do American patients.
Yet there are other, unseen, partners in the creation of Xalatan: the American taxpayers, who backed Dr. Bito's work with $4 million from the National Institutes of Health. The taxpayers have reaped no financial return on their investment; their reward, government officials say, is the eyedrop itself.
Gee, thanks.
Dr. Bito and Carl wanted to see this discovery expanded, but it would have been nice to see my friend participate in some of the millions being made. Unfortunately, it wasn't Bito's call to make:
Congress, in late 1980, passed legislation that directed federally financed researchers like Dr. Bito to patent their inventions, or risk losing control of them to the government.
Ronald Reagan had just won election on a platform to make America strong again. Japan's electronic industry was out-competing the United States in its own backyard. Determined not to lose, Congress passed Public Law 96-517 known as the Bayh-Dole Act after Senators Birch Bayh of Indiana and Bob Dole of Kansas.
Public Law 96-517:
Universities must file patents on inventions they elect to own.
The government retains a non-exclusive license to practice the invention throughout the world.
What did this law want to do?
The law was designed to push federally financed research from the university laboratory into the marketplace. Scientists who made discoveries using taxpayer money were required to file invention reports with the government. Universities were directed to license patented inventions to companies that would commercialize them.
...
Within a year, Dr. Bito said, Pharmacia had bought exclusive rights to his idea, paying Columbia between $100,000 and $150,000. The government received no fees; the law did not require it.
Another brilliant idea pushed by the Republicans.
Doesn't give those university professors much incentive to invent the cure for cancer, does it?
So who's making all the money?
A reconstruction of Xalatan's profitability, based on outside experts and company documents, suggests its profit margin is likely higher than the company's average of 76 percent, perhaps as high as 90 percent. The company, however, will not talk about Xalatan's earnings.
And who's not?
In October of 1996, a few months after Xalatan was on pharmacy shelves, Dr. Quigley. prescribed it to Mr. Russell, the retired optician, who is blind in his right eye and nearly blind in the left. The drug worked to perfection, lowering Mr. Russell's intraocular pressure to well within normal range. ''It was fantastic,'' he said.
The only problem was the price. ''Forty-five bucks,'' Mr. Russell exclaimed, cradling a bottle of Xalatan in his hand. ''I flinch every time I think about it.''
Don't even ask what Pharmacia is charging for it - you can't afford it. They have to recoup their huge marketing investments.