Four NGOs ask NIH to grant open licenses to ritonavir patents under Bayh-Dole March-in provisions | Knowledge Ecology International

Use the link to access the petition and additional supporting materials.  "On October 25, 2012, the American Medical Students Association (AMSA), Knowledge Ecology International (KEI), U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) and the Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM) filed a petition (attached here) requesting that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant Bayh-Dole Act march-in rights for the patents held by Abbott Laboratories relevant to the manufacture and sale of ritonavir, a federally funded invention that is much more expensive in the United States than in Canada, Europe or other high-income countries. As noted in the cover letter, in the more than 31 years of the history of the Bayh-Dole Act, the NIH has never granted a march-in request. This means either that there have been zero abuses involving NIH funded patent rights in more than three decades, or that the NIH has been unwilling to curb abuses. The organizations have asked the NIH to grant open licenses on patents held by Abbott for the manufacture and sale of the HIV drug ritonavir. The petition also requests the NIH adapt two rules that will create standards for future march-in requests, making NIH policy more predictable as well as effective in protecting the public's interest in federally funded inventions. At the center of the petition is an important policy issue for the NIH. Can an NIH funded medical invention maintain its patent monopoly when U.S. residents are paying more than anyone else? The petitioners are asking the NIH to set a policy that would grant march-in requests when U.S. residents face substantially higher prices than the patent owners charge in other countries with comparable incomes. The petition also asks the NIH to adopt a clear policy on march-in petitions in cases where patents on medical inventions are 'necessary to effect significant health benefits' of a second product 'used or is potentially useful to prevent, treat or diagnose medical conditions or diseases involving humans.' While the petition focuses on one drug, ritonavir, which is priced 4 to 10 times higher in the USA than in other high income countries, the policies would influence the pricing of many other federally financed drug inventions, such as the drugs highlighted in Tedmund Wan's survey (attached here), which looked at 14 NIH funded drugs, 13 of which were priced higher in the United States than in foreign markets, often significantly so. The two rules the petition proposes to the NIH are as follows..."