I was once interviewed live on Bloomberg radio at some god-awful hour in the morning, following a 30% drop in the share price of Ely Lily resulting from a negative decision in a patent case by the U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of Colombia. If you’d listened carefully, you could almost pick up the rasp of my unshaven face against the telephone receiver.

The news slot was aimed at brokers and bankers in the financial market. The interviewer was clearly keen for me to be some sort of soothsayer—to wring my hands and pronounce the forthcoming doom of Ely Lily, and of the pharma industry as a whole.

“Will this decision have an impact on pharma share prices here in the UK when the markets open?” he asked.