No, they're entirely functional. You can't copyright, say, penicillin (it is not a creative work!), but you can get a patent on the use of penicillin to kill microorganisms.
Yeah that's true, the specific application is involved so its not strictly equivalent to a copyright. All in all, I think the pharmaceutical industry is a place where patents themselves seem to work as intended even if manufacturers' legal, sales and marketing departments have been known to take atrocious liberties.
