[Drug patents and other ways to protect pharmaceutical research].

Pharmaceutical research constitutes a significant cost for pharmaceutical companies. Because of the importance of the financial investment in research projects, companies must protect their discoveries. There are multiple ways to do this. First, the legal avenue can be divided into three parts: a pharmaceutical company can protect a new drug by a patent, then an additional patent or a secondary patent; moreover, since 1992 in Europe, the pharmaceutical industry has been able to extend a patent by the "Supplementary Protection Certificate" (le Certificat Complémentaire de Protection [CCP]). The nonjuridical way is to use the chiral "switch", which can extend patents close to expiring, thus enhancing profitability.