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Evergreening: a common practice to protect new drugs

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The common strategy of evergreening using patents and other exclusivity periods likely contributes to the total incentives that justify a pharmaceutical company's investment in a new drug.

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Figure 1: Characteristics of patent exclusivities associated with NDAs.
Figure 2: Characteristics of FDA-approval exclusivities associated with NDAs.

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Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank B. Roin and P. Hutt for their review of and suggestions for this manuscript.

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  1. Kate S. Gaudry is a recent graduate from Harvard Law School.,

    Kate S Gaudry

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  1. Kate S Gaudry
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Correspondence to Kate S Gaudry.

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Gaudry, K. Evergreening: a common practice to protect new drugs. Nat Biotechnol 29, 876–878 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt.1993

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