DRUG PATENTS WERE SCRAPPED?
In 1955, virologist Jonas Salk was asked about the intellectual property rights of his polio vaccine. To which he responded: ‘There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?’ Salk’s choice to make the vaccine patent free ultimately beat back the US polio epidemic by 1962.
The pharmaceuticals industry has ballooned in size since then, reaching an estimated value of $1.2 trillion in
