Drug prices: Trump administration may kill deterrent to high cost - The Washington Post

tvol's bookmarks 2019-04-20

Summary:

March-in rights have never been used by the government, which historically has encouraged the flow of discoveries to private business for development. The National Institutes of Health, the leading drug research agency, has declined multiple times to use march-in rights to control prices — including under Democratic President Barack Obama.

But in today’s hyper-charged debates over the costs of U.S. prescription drugs, especially with the advent of biotechnology and gene therapies that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, the government’s powers are getting a closer look.

Consumer advocates argue that the threat of government action is one of the few checks on drug prices and could give drug companies second thoughts about gouging consumers on drugs that were invented with public funding.

“The pharmaceutical manufacturer takes taxpayers’ money that was invested, and takes the government monopoly that is granted, and charges monopoly prices without any countervailing force,’’ Doggett, the chairman of the House Ways and Means subcommittee on health, said in an interview.

Link:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/a-rare-deterrent-to-limitless-drug-price-increases-may-die-under-trump/2019/04/17/7578e5e0-5bcd-11e9-a00e-050dc7b82693_story.html

From feeds:

Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » tvol's bookmarks

Tags:

oa.new oa.patents oa.nih oa.nist oa.ostp oa.intellectual_property oa.march-in_rights oa.usa oa.trump oa.pharma

Date tagged:

04/20/2019, 14:43

Date published:

04/20/2019, 10:43