Why patents are so important for pharma or how today`s humanism soon will return with disaster?

Cost of development of new drugs, e.g. COVID-19 vaccines is starting from $500 mlns and typically reaches billions of dollars.

These investments can be returned only after (if!!!) the new drug will be launched on the market.

The new drug can be launched on the market exclusively under permission of a special government authority e.g. FDA in US, EMA in EU etc.

Normally, this process takes many years - 5, 10, 15...

Before that no one penny of this huge investment can be returned to the investor.

An investor is a private, profit-making organization.

In case of suspending/waiving patents on COVID-19 vaccines private investors cannot get profit, moreover they will lost most of their investments, most likely they will go bankrupt.

So what!?

The fact is - today we hear about new strains of COVID-19, some of them able to overcome the immune defenses produced by new vaccines. Obviously, COVID-19 is not only epidemy threatens mankind in the future, nearest future, 1, 3, 5 years.

The question is - who will invest into development of the new drugs against new treats after the developers of COVID vaccines will go bankrupt and other R&D institutions and pharmaceutical companies will be confident that their patents will be suspended?