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.

  • Goku
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    411 year ago

    This is a huge step in the right direction… All these post docs funding their research with federal grants then when they discover/create a successful drug they price it as if they funded the research themselves.

    • @Supervisor194
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      171 year ago

      I will never understand why all the sheep who goddamn hate socialism so much defend it to their last breath when its corporations getting it so they can turn around and fuck the country sideways.

      • @isles
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        51 year ago

        If we don’t save the corpos, how else will it trickle down to us?!

      • @[email protected]
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        21 year ago

        Because, one day, they might be the ones that can fuck people sideway and get filthy rich.