Jack Kingston: “there are some companies who are actually leading the way. Eli Lilly, to their credit, has stopped this practice of…”

“there are some companies who are actually leading the way. Eli Lilly, to their credit, has stopped this practice of going to a doctor's office and buying the whole staff lunch for the day, and then leaving them with trays and trays of free prescriptions for samples. I think Eli Lilly should be commended for leading the way into a different way of marketing, and I think other drug companies should take a look at that. I want to talk just real briefly on patents. Prozac went off patent last August, and the price of Prozac fell 70 percent. The question is, when we pay for so much of the research and development on a new drug as American taxpayers, should drug companies still be given a 17-year patent? I think that should be something that we should discuss. Maybe it should be longer. Maybe it should only be 5 years, though.”