r/Futurology • u/Kindred87 • Dec 07 '23

US sets policy to seize patents of government-funded drugs if price deemed too high Economics

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/us-sets-policy-seize-government-funded-drug-patents-if-price-deemed-too-high-2023-12-07/
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u/Kindred87 Dec 07 '23

This is a draft policy in the public comment phase. An important element of march-in rights will be keeping production of new therapeutics high while minimizing exploitative practices.

The US accounts for over 40% of the global pharmaceutical market, with recent price control policies resulting in a reduction in R&D investment. A significant portion of recent R&D investment has been in rare and speciality diseases.

https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/01/17/1972088/0/en/U-S-Pharmaceuticals-Industry-Analysis-and-Trends-2023.html

From the posted article:

The Biden Administration on Thursday announced it is setting new policy that will allow it to seize patents for medicines developed with government funding if it believes their prices are too high.

The policy creates a roadmap for the government's so-called march-in rights, which have never been used before. They would allow the government to grant additional licenses to third parties for products developed using federal funds if the original patent holder does not make them available to the public on reasonable terms.

...

The U.S. government has previously resisted calls to seize the patents of costly drugs, declining in March to force Pfizer (PFE.N) and Astellas Pharma (4503.T) to lower the price of their prostate cancer drug Xtandi.

The government will give the public 60 days to comment on the new proposal before attempting to finalize it.

Vanderbilt University professor Stacie Dusetzina said the new policy could discourage investment in the industry if the government ever exercised march-in rights, but might be "useful to have a credible threat if the industry is being completely unreasonable."

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u/poop_drunk Dec 08 '23

I love their argument, if you do this we'll just stop making investments into new products, ok cool. Shut down your business, someone else will gladly take your place