Drug companies, profit and ethical considerations

[Dave2002]

This article about a potential repurposing of one drug to treat Alzheimer’s disease is interesting - https://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...=.e3e22daf14a5

It doesn’t automatically follow that Pfizer’s was wrong not to disclose its tentative findings based on insurance data, but it’s interesting that large companies are looking at large data sets for clues, which they may act upon in some cases.

[richardfinegold]

It is also confusing from a corporate standpoint. If they don’t want want to pursue the Alzheimer’s pathway, they could have Liscensed the technology to another company and made some revenue for themselves

[Dave2002]

It is also confusing from a corporate standpoint. If they don’t want want to pursue the Alzheimer’s pathway, they could have Licensed the technology to another company and made some revenue for themselves

Have I got this wrong? If Pfizer's were viewing the current drug as effectively at end of (profitable) life, then surely now the information is now out there, one of the other companies could follow this up anyway. OTOH, if Pfizer (or anyone else) comes up with a new drug for which less information is freely available, then that might not work. However, I know relatively little about the regulatory processes. It may be that even though Pfizer can't block generics in the near future, they might be able to prevent repurposing of the same or similar drugs which have been previously developed and exploited by one or two large companies.