Curing Alzheimer's Without Drug Patents

The Washington Post had an interesting article on how Pfizer learned that its arthritis drug, Enbrel, may be useful in slowing the onset of Alzheimer's disease. According to the article, Pfizer chose not to pursue any further testing of the usefulness of Enbrel as an Alzheimer's treatment, nor did it share its evidence with anyone else.

The most obvious reason why it did not pursue further testing itself is that the main patent on Enbrel was about to expire. This meant that if Pfizer invested...