How a Patent Lawyer’s Work Shaped America’s High Drug Prices: The Story of Alfred Engelberg

Depending on whom you ask, Alfred Engelberg could be a hero or a villain in the story of American pharmaceuticals. The patent lawyer helped draft legislation that dramatically increased the availability of generic drugs. Yet, he also contributed to a patent system that grants pharmaceutical companies monopolies on their most profitable drugs, delaying generic competition and keeping prices elevated.

Dan Weissmann, host of the podcast An Arm and a Leg, traces Engelberg’s journey over 50 years—from his modest childhood on the Atlantic City boardwalk to watching President Ronald Reagan sign his bill into law in the White House Rose Garden.

Today, Engelberg advocates for policy changes he believes will expedite the entry of more generic drugs into the market.

About the Host and Producers

• Dan Weissmann (@danweissmann, @danweissmann.bsky.social): Host and producer of An Arm and a Leg. Previously, he worked as a staff reporter for Marketplace and Chicago’s WBEZ. His reporting has also appeared on All Things Considered, Marketplace, the BBC, 99% Invisible, and Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting.
• Emily Pisacreta: Producer
• Claire Davenport: Producer
• Adam Raymonda: Audio engineer
• Ellen Weiss: Editor

Transcript and Credits

An Arm and a Leg uses speech-recognition software to generate transcripts, which may contain errors. Please use the transcript as a reference but verify it against the corresponding audio before quoting the podcast.

Why Drugs Cost So Much: A New Series

Host Dan Weissmann introduces a new series, An Arm and a Leg 101, which consolidates years of reporting on two critical questions: Why does healthcare cost so much? and What can we do about it?

The series begins by addressing a fundamental issue: Why are so many drugs so expensive?

Weissmann recalls one of the first questions he explored: How can insulin be so expensive when it was discovered in the early 20th century? Shouldn’t it be available as a generic drug by now?

Part of the answer lies in how insulin has evolved. Dr. Jing Luo, a medical researcher, explains:

“Today’s insulins are a long way from what we had a hundred years ago. They’ve been really modified at a molecular level. It’s cool stuff. It’s super cool stuff. And you know, there are multiple Nobel prizes in physiology and medicine that have made this happen.”

These modifications, while groundbreaking, are patented. Pharmaceutical companies hold monopolies on these innovations, preventing generic versions from entering the market. Dr. Luo notes:

“Companies can stack dozens of patents on [a drug].”