Opinion: We need a Public Domain Day to highlight when drugs go off patent

This Jan. 1, readers, archivists, and creatives in the United States celebrated a special holiday: the largest Public Domain Day in 21 years. The legal ownership of hundreds of works of classic literature — this year including well-loved Robert Frost poems like “Nothing Gold Can Stay” and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” — was transferred into the hands of the people.

We suggest a plot twist: Let’s celebrate the same way when drug patents expire.

Every year, patents on high-profile branded drugs expire and these compounds allowing competitors to make and sell these same treatments at lower, most drugs are under patent protection for just 10 to 15 years. Companies that successfully bring a drug to market have only that time to charge high prices before the drug goes generic. Patent protection is their window to profit from their investments and to plow some of that money back into developing new treatments. This system of incentives keeps the biotechnology innovation engine churning, rather than allowing it to milk cash-cow drugs forever.