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Existing Law That Fights Drug Price Increases Targeted by Trump
The one thing, literally the one thing, Trump has ever said that made a single ounce of sense was that prescription drug prices are too high. Of course, he has no idea what to do about that and the Republicans surrounding him have zero interest in lowering prices. In fact, they are former execs from drug companies and healthcare lobbyists who have worked to maintain the power of the drug industry.
As drug prices have soared, lawmakers and patient advocates have pushed the federal government to deploy for the first time a powerful deterrent: a legal provision that allows it to suspend a drugmaker’s patent and license someone else to produce the drug. Now, responding to industry alarm over those demands, the Trump administration is proposing to strictly limit the little-known power.
That's right. There's apparently a law that the government could use to help lower drug prices. It's unlikely anyone reading this or our source article below knew of this specific provision. But now we see Trump and his Republican friends are seeking to end it. What else would you expect? Trump is a fool and a liar and Republicans work only for corporate overlords not the people.
The Commerce draft plan would prohibit the government from suspending a drugmaker’s exclusive patent over excessive pricing. It targets an obscure provision of a 40-year-old law called Bayh-Dole that is supposed to protect taxpayer interests in government-funded inventions, such as drugs discovered using federal grant money.
The move by the Department of Commerce is supported by drug manufacturers.... a triumph for industry. ....undermine Trump’s populist message of attacking drug prices..... has called lowering prices one of his “greatest priorities.’’
In practice, this law has never been used but the power of the government TO USE IT creates incentives for drug companies to behave a little bit. Trump and Republicans want even that threat, NEVER BEFORE USED, gone.
March-in rights have never been used by the government.... The National Institutes of Health, the leading drug research agency, has declined multiple times to use march-in rights to control prices.... 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 draft plan.... by NIST’s director, Undersecretary of Commerce Walter G. Copan, a Trump appointee.... would block any government agency from exercising march-in rights based on the price of a product.
Thanks Republicans.