Memo To The President: The Pharmaceutical Monopoly Adjustment Act Of 2017

Since 1980, Congress has enacted many laws granting pharmaceutical manufacturers monopolies that no other industry enjoys. These extra monopolies were created with the expectation that monopoly profits would spur greater investment in research to find important new drugs. In fact, they have caused US consumers to pay higher prices for medicines for longer periods of time while making the pharmaceutical industry far more profitable than any other industry. I believe the next president and Congress should take several key steps, which I outline below, to roll back these costly, unnecessary monopolies. The Current Landscape Current extra pharmaceutical monopolies include: Absolute freedom from generic competition for seven years for orphan drugs; for five to seven years for all new small molecule drugs; and 12 years for new biologic drugs. The right to extend the length of a patent claiming an approved new drug for five years up to a maximum of 14 years. The right to a six-month patent extension for conducting studies to determine the suitability of a drug for children. The right to delay approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of competitive generic and biosimilar drugs by merely asserting that patents may be infringed without regard to the merits of the assertion. The right to acquire the exclusive rights to drugs discovered as a result of government-funded biomedical research and to sell those drugs without any restraint on prices or profits. The pharmaceutical...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - Category: Health Management Authors: Tags: Costs and Spending Drugs and Medical Technology Health Policy Lab Bayh-Dole Act Big Pharma Gilead Hatch-Waxman Act johnson & johnson pfizer Source Type: blogs