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US sets policy to seize patents of government-funded drugs if price deemed too high (www.reuters.com)

submitted 9 months ago by DevCat@lemmy.world to c/politics@lemmy.world

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Dec 7 (Reuters) - 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.

Under the draft roadmap, seen by Reuters, the government will consider factors including whether only a narrow set of patients can afford the drug, and whether drugmakers are exploiting a health or safety issue by hiking prices.

"We'll make it clear that when drug companies won't sell taxpayer funded drugs at reasonable prices, we will be prepared to allow other companies to provide those drugs for less," White House adviser Lael Brainard said on a press call.

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[-] cyborganism@lemmy.ca 66 points 9 months ago

Wow. That's good.

But I'm willing to bet lobbyists are going to decide what is deemed "too high".

[-] cyd@lemmy.world 11 points 9 months ago

Lawyers and judges will decide. Any attempt to trigger this mechanism will set off a legal firestorm the likes of which has seldom been seen. And once it reaches the Supreme Court...

[-] Sprokes@jlai.lu 6 points 9 months ago

Is a final law or a policy that can be thrown out by president? Didn't Obama pass many environments policies that were thrown out by Trump?

[-] _number8_@lemmy.world 43 points 9 months ago

how about m4a like every other proper country

[-] umbrella@lemmy.ml 21 points 9 months ago

yeah but shareholders

[-] agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works 8 points 9 months ago

Here's a wild idea: make every citizen a shareholder in the country.

[-] AA5B@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago

Imagine having voting rights at the board meeting

[-] SrTobi@feddit.de 2 points 9 months ago

You are shareholder of the countries debt. Is that not enough for you?

[-] macaro@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 9 months ago

That’s doesn’t make fat stacks of cash.

[-] umbrella@lemmy.ml 1 points 9 months ago

you mean like gasp socialism?

[-] assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago

Technically no other country has M4A. All of them have supplemental private insurance, and the current M4A policy completely abolishes all of it.

I'm in favor of universal healthcare for essentials and allowing private insurance for supplementals, to start with. The ultimate goal would be to phase out insurance completely, but it's unwise to jump ahead to it immediately since there currently aren't any systems that do so and we have no experience nor data.

[-] BluJay320@lemmy.blahaj.zone 19 points 9 months ago

How about we just get rid of drug patents altogether…

[-] lauha@lemmy.one -2 points 9 months ago

What would incentivise researching new drugs when all competitors could just copy it, reaping the benefits without cost.

[-] CaptainSpaceman@lemmy.world 7 points 9 months ago

They're paid by the gov to research already, thats the incentive

[-] lauha@lemmy.one 1 points 9 months ago

All drug development is paid fully by government?

[-] ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works 4 points 9 months ago

Subsidized generally.

It follows a similar model as military R&D. They request money and have no real obligation to deliver a functioning or viable final product.

[-] CaptainSpaceman@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago

And even if it wasnt, a substantial amount IS funded by the gov, enough to have progress made without capitalist vultures reaping exorbitant profits off of the misery of the proletariat

[+] random65837@lemmy.world -23 points 9 months ago

Then they were be no drugs. Nobody is going to spend billions in R&D just so others can make it for nothing. Not how real life works. There is real price gouging haopening, nobody can deny that, but a huge chunk of that happening in the US is thanks to the astronomical amount of money it takes to deal with the FDA to bring a drug to market.

Look at how many of our drugs by US Pharma that sells in other countries for near nothing, people are quick to give credit to that to regulation forcing it, and sometimes it is, but in many cases is countries that allow them to get their drugs on the shelves much quicker and cheaper, and that's how they get their money back. If a drug is locked up in prescriptions, most can't get it, they have a hard time making their money back. If they could stick it on a shelf and anybody that wanted them could get them, the money keeps coming in.

A million years ago I used to install auto glass. When a customer had a claim for a windshield, wed charge an insurance conan average of $400 to replace it, when a customer paid us directly without insurance, it was like $250. We were forced to do a ton at bullshit rates because insurance companies work and dictate pricing they'll pay, so the glass companies pass the loss down the chain. Same way every business works. When stores have constant theft they can't stop, process go up to couter it.

[-] NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world 20 points 9 months ago

Or we could just make drug research and development government funded. Problem solved.

[-] TallonMetroid@lemmy.world 12 points 9 months ago

Don't most of these companies use government subsidies anyway?

[-] kurwa@lemmy.world 9 points 9 months ago

Yeah, I mean this posts title literally says government funded drugs. We gotta pay for the research with our taxes and then out of pocket for the damn thing.

[-] assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

This would be a perfect slogan. We're asking that government subsidized medical research be free to the public. We aren't asking companies to research complex medications without any compensation. Make it so the subsidy results in a net profit for the company (which it probably already does) and remove the private sales. Everyone wins, and we aren't stupidly paying twice.

[-] masquenox@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

We gotta pay for the research

You mean that thing you already do?

[-] kurwa@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

That's what I said? And I don't doubt there's research going on right now that is funded by the US tax payers.

[-] Ottomateeverything@lemmy.world 12 points 9 months ago

That's a lot of words to say you're very narrow minded or are drinking too much kool aid.

There's many ways to solve this that don't involve us handing exclusivity to mega corporations.

[-] ReluctantMuskrat@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

Read the headline again... this is talking about government-funded patents.

If the pharmaceutical companies are using government funding to pay for their research, the government and the people it represents should reap some of the benefits. Stop being a shill for billion dollar companies that lobby hard in corrupt efforts to get government $s to fund their record profits.

[-] masquenox@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

Then they were be no drugs.

Good thing there are no patents on the wheel, huh? I guess we should be lucky any human invented anything for the millenia humans have been doing so before billionaire parasites came around to save us from ourselves, eh?

Does bootlicking come naturally to you or did something happen to make you like this?

[-] random65837@lemmy.world -4 points 9 months ago

Theres no bootlicking you socialist cunt, only seeing how it actually works. In the countries where they don't make it nearly impossible to bring a drug to market, people can afford them. Not hard to grasp.

[-] masquenox@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

you socialist cunt,

Flattery isn't going to help you here, Clyde.

Your glorious "free market" has been exposed - and no amount of luxury shoe polish you can pack onto your tongue will reverse that.

[-] rebelsimile@sh.itjust.works 1 points 9 months ago

Oh honey. Have you never heard of Jonas Salk? Do you think the pyramids were built for profit? Humans have done things for reasons other than profit. You’ve been brainwashed or are just making ridiculous statements.

[-] Spotlight7573@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

Uh, weren't the pyramids built explicitly for the profit/benefit in the afterlife for those few rulers set to be entombed in them, at the cost of many human lives? I'm having a hard time thinking of something more self centered/personal profit focused right now.

[-] rebelsimile@sh.itjust.works 1 points 9 months ago

You can certainly take that interpretation, but it had nothing to do with hitting quarterly profit goals. My point is humans create, build and make things and have for millennia before capitalism and profit existed as a motive. The idea that humans wouldn’t do anything if not for the invisible hand of the market is a modern fiction. The idea that we wouldn’t invent life saving drugs without the incentive to make a buck is absurd.

[-] agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works 1 points 9 months ago

Just because quarterly profit goals are a modern invention doesn't mean personal interest and self-aggrandizement are. Humans, mostly, created, built, and made things for their own self-interest for millennia. Not saying that's how it has to be, not saying we should base our civilization on that, but pretending that greed was invented with modern capitalism is silly.

[-] rebelsimile@sh.itjust.works 1 points 9 months ago

yeah and I provided a range of behaviors from a literal pharaoh to Jonas Salk. What the fuck is up with everyone’s need to jump in with their WELL ACKTUALLY shit

[-] agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Cool? Dunno how the existence of an altruistic person, or multiple altruistic people, disproves the prevalence of greed in human history. No one said that literally every human to ever exist was exclusively greedy. Talking about trends here.

[-] rebelsimile@sh.itjust.works 1 points 9 months ago

Cool, great discussion. Glad we had it.

[-] DemBoSain@midwest.social 17 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

This is about as close as you can get to journalistic malpractice. All the stories I see mention a 60 day period for submitting comments, but none of them say how to do it.

Here you can read the notification. Go Here to leave a comment (there's a comment button under the title). You can leave an anonymous comment if you want, but I only read those for the when I want to feel indignant about the US educational system.

Spread the links. Give them to your friends. Find the administrators of local charities and ask them to comment. Tell your congress-critters that you're tired of corporations taking tax money to develop technology, then making billions off that technology.

Publicly Funded means Publicly Owned!

Note that it's the NIST (National Institute of Standards Technology) and not the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) asking for comments. This is the most recent government notice regarding Baye-Dohl (edit, it's Bayh-Dole). The next-most-recent is Nuclear Regulatory Commision (Dec. 4) and Department of Energy (October). If I see something from FDA I'll post it.

[-] progressquest@reddthat.com 3 points 9 months ago

Commented. Thank you for the link.

[-] ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works 7 points 9 months ago

I am not sure what will be cheaper, the lobbyist claiming prices aren't too high, or the shell subsidiary company formed to acquire those third party licenses.

[-] HessiaNerd@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

It's not like you could gobble up all the third party licenses, there are an infinite amount and they would come with a cost.

[-] autotldr@lemmings.world 3 points 9 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Dec 7 (Reuters) - 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.

Under the draft roadmap, seen by Reuters, the government will consider factors including whether only a narrow set of patients can afford the drug, and whether drugmakers are exploiting a health or safety issue by hiking prices.

Megan Van Etten, a spokesperson for the leading pharmaceutical industry lobby group PhRMA, said allowing the government to use march-in rights based on price would stunt innovation and harm patients.

Under Bayh-Dole, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has the power to seize patents of federally-funded medicines, but the agency's former director Francis Collins said it did not have the authority to use march-in rights to lower drug prices.

Progressive lawmakers in the Democratic Party have this year heaped criticism on drugmakers that developed therapies with government funding, and called on President Joe Biden's administration to use its march-in authority to lower drug prices.

In March, Moderna (MRNA.O) CEO Stephane Bancel was called to testify in Congress after the company flagged plans to raise the price of its COVID-19 vaccine to as much as $130 per dose, drawing the ire of Democratic U.S.

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this post was submitted on 09 Dec 2023

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