Biden administration asserts power to seize drug patents in move to slash high prices
The Biden administration on Thursday asserted its authority to seize the patents of certain costly medications in a new push to slash high drug prices and promote more pharmaceutical competition.
The administration unveiled a framework outlining the factors federal agencies should consider in deciding whether to use a controversial policy, known as march-in rights, to break the patents of drugs that were developed with federal funds but are not widely accessible to the public. For the first time, officials can now factor in a medication’s price — a change that could have big implications for drugmakers depending on how the government uses the powers.
“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 National Economic Advisor Lael Brainard said during a call with reporters Wednesday.
I'm probably going to get downvoted for this, but the Biden administration has really exceeded my expectations.
They do great work, but they don't market and promote their successes well enough. I would prefer a society that favors humility more and therefore appreciate this administration's style, but it seems that a lack of hubris is now considered a fault in the public eye, on both sides of the aisle.
I think that's more the media's fault than the administration's.
American citizens slammed with lower drug and education costs
--there, now the media can run with it lol
SLAM! As an American I demand more slams! Slam everything! Slam Trump! Slam Biden! Slam medicare! Slam insurance policies! Slam portmanteaus! Slam Bidenomics! Slam Obama care!
SLLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
…and welcome to the jam.
Pump it up
Good news doesn't get views.
I would like an administration whose flamboyant about their successes so I know what to expect in my daily life when it comes to politics aka why I see more EVs (rebates funding and a federal charging grid), lower/higher prices on things (like Biden removing patents to create competition) and even insurrectionists going to jail (if we had a working justice system)!
A big part of the problem is that so much of this is "basic human decency"
Like... people who commit violent insurrection are going to jail. That should not be a news story.
And the EV rebates and improved infrastructure were part of the big IRA (hee hee) bill that did get a lot of eyes. But stuff like futzing with patents actually will piss off a lot of voters who think they are one good day away from being the head of a pharmaceuticals empire (and then they can tell their manager at the Dairy Queen to suck it).
And then you have the problem of the base. Most of the Biden Admin threads inevitably include someone complaining that they haven't fixed student loan debt yet (although, a lot of progress was made on that like yesterday?). Because Democrats actually want things. I want a better social safety net and UBI experiments before it is too late (spoiler: it already is). Maybe you want all student loan debt to be erased. Jill over there wants... basic human rights (okay, I want that too).
But every time there is a win in one category, it just makes people angry THEY didn't get the win and we start getting the "Biden needs to earn my vote" stupidity.
No, I feel the same way. It's just that they've also utterly sucked in some areas too. Regardless, you know I'm hella voting for him because wtf else am I gonna do? There's no choice in our political system so I'll do what I need to.
It really annoys me when they Biden has done nothing.
Then they're all, "well I didn't hear about it"
I get that the media and even the Dems suck at showing people what they've accomplished, but that doesn't mean they've done nothing.
It's that usual right-wing thing, where their opponent is simultaneously an idiot who does nothing, and also a scheming mastermind who's responsible for all the trouble in the world depending on which way the wind's blowing.
This isn't an action. This is words. Words are wind.
🤡
No disagreements here. I am kind of shocked by this very non neolib behavior—the above as well as well as being the first sitting president to join the UAW picket line. I was a bit miffed about the train strike, though. But his administration lobbied the companies and got them their sick days they've been fighting for, for ages. Really didn't expect any of that.
Non neolib? Introducing competition rather than seizing and making them public is about as neolib as you can get.
So by letting a company keep their monopoly due to federally subsidized patent thus harming citizens but helping the company is... less neolib?
Whatever it is, it seems shittier than making a move to fuck a company -- if it results in reduced drug prices anyway.
Where did I say they should be allowed to keep their monopoly?
Yes. Monopolization is one of the many externalities that government exists to address within a neoliberal framework
Neoliberalism is a good thing, actually.
Why would you say something so controversial yet so brave?
It's only controversial if your only understanding of economic orthodoxy is Breadtube or some shit lol
Yeah he wasn't my first choice but I was fine voting for him and his administration has definitely beat expectations. Pretty nice what having capable people in your administration can do for your presidency. Not just scandal after scandal and departure after departure like the previous shitshow.
I wish media would give credit to the organization leaders responsible for these types of moves rather than crediting a homogeneous "Biden administration." The fact is that the administration does deserve credit for employing a number of "progressive" (read: competent) administrators, but those departments compose a progressive wing of the administration that is not on par with some of the overall administration's more centrist leanings.
-- Cory Doctorow
You know, I never really thought about this, you make a good point.
Also, I notice so many people mentioning Cory Doctorow lately, what's up with that? His oddly spelled lay name is even in my phone's autocorrect! All small hints of a certain fascination with him.
Every time there's a bunch of commenters talking about how little they like Biden (or his administration) for 'not doing enough', I know:
How do I know they don't vote? Because they are too lazy to even be up to date via Google on the political opinions they post - they certainly aren't going to bother to actually leave their house and vote.
That said, the Biden administration might do well to be more bombastic with their statements about their successes. I don't love the idea that the merit of a success would need to be 'sold', but you have the GOP screaming idiot things all over the media sphere every single day, and that has to be competed with.
The only point of disagreement I have is that it's been demonstrated that the Internet doesn't promote echo chambers, it does quite the opposite in fact.
The problem it introduces is that people are constantly exposed against their will to opposing viewpoints curated to make them as angry as possible.
This results in them becoming explosively volatile towards those opposing viewpoints even in moderated or even well justified forms because they have learned to associate any opposing opinions with the algorithm selected ultra aggro version they just had a knock down drag out hundred comment chain argument with someone a day ago.
IRL you just disregard the fucker and move on, the internet is teaching people to see everyone who disagrees with you as that fucker laying in wait to instigate yet another knock down drag out argument where you feel like you're losing your mind talking to a wall that insists the sky is orange and that climate policy is communism because soylent green burgers or whatever.
Then there's the additional problem of when a significant portion of the people trying to sound reasonable on the internet turn out to actually be that fucker out to instigate because they want to make you look crazy for how mad you get at their bullshit while they calmly explain that "it isn't unreasonable to expect a politician to earn your vote!"
It's rhetorical strategies within rhetorical strategies all designed to keep you under a constant feeling of being attacked.
It's also possible they are not legally allowed to vote in the US for one or another reason...
Amen to that. It's a shame the left doesn't have a shameless media ecosystem that can produce a 24/7 cacophony of propaganda to amplify this kind of stuff.
I'm not sure brainwashing is the right way to go here idk 🤔
I'm pretty sure there's a significant difference between marketing and brainwashing. And I'm also pretty sure you already knew that.
We don't need a Fox "news" equivalent for Democrats that pumps out propaganda (your term used above) and traps Democrats into an echo chamber.
I mean we already have some fairly biased left leaning news outlets. Nothing like Fox or OANN or Breitbart.
Still, I would like to get rid of heavily biased propaganda outlets because -- yes -- they basically brainwash their listers with various techniques.
Good for you, living in that fantasy land. Let me know how it works out for you in 50 years.
Meanwhile, on Earth, I'll continue to believe that there are tools at our disposal, and that we should use them.
They do, it's just that that ecosystem is owned by the same vested interests and so it churns a cacaphony of criticism aimed at making the left feel no accomplishment is good enough and no effort is far enough.
Ain't that the damned truth.
Democrats are not left.
That's what I keep saying. Despite the bar being extremely low due to the previous administration and the whole "nothing fundamentally will change" my expectations have definitely been exceeded
I slightly agree. But more that nothing has been done yet aside from clarifying vague wording in legislation.
Wake me up when any of this shit is actually implemented.
This is already something though. It's a legal threat.
We will only see patents actually be seized if the drug companies don't play ball. They'll have to choose whether to cooperate or to challenge this in the courts. The govdrnment isn't trying to seize patents anymore than banks are hoping to repossess property.
I'll give credit when things have changed a single smidge.
You, right now.
I've seen this again and again with younger people in particular (though I've also seen the occasional boomer behave similarly). It's like people have no concept of how long things can take in the real world sometimes.
Yes it seems like most of these actions are symbolic gestures that never pan out into actual change. Like asking for marijuana to be 'studied' to see if it belongs as Schedule 1 with no medical value while 38 states have approved it for medical use and 24 states have legalized it for recreational use. What the fuck is left to study at this point?
Another example is him pardoning people with federal marijuana possession convictions even though nobody was actually incarcerated for simple possession in the federal prison system.
Seems this shit is all about generating headlines and political brownie points not actually improving anything in our day to day lives.
Pardons aren't just about not being in prison.
From, interestingly enough, the DOJ site about this very topic.
https://www.justice.gov/pardon/presidential-proclamation-marijuana-possession
Personally I like that fewer lives are ruined due to stupid laws.
Those lives have already been ruined. Coming back years later and saying "we messed up" doesn't give these people that time back.
Those stupid laws still exist (as outlined in my second example) and are still used against people today, including seizing their property and refusing to give it back without spending years in costly litigation, all without a single crime having been committed. You're highlighting exactly what's missing here: actual change. He wants the headlines inferring that he's actually taking progressive action without having to actually change anything for the better.
You get it. I wish the rest of these Lemmys did, too.
What a stupid comment to make. Unless this is your first day, Lemmy isoverwhelmingy in support of the biden administration, which is fine of course, but if you just scope around, its the most obvious prevailing opinion. Anytime trump is praised, which is rare, they're down voted and reported and fucking removed.
This is as stupid as saying :
"Gonna get down voted for this but I think murder is bad"
In my experience, Lemmy is usually far enough left that they say Biden is basically a Republican. There's absolutely a ton of "both sides bad" bullshit on Lemmy.
Yeah and you don't even see the tankie instances on your instance. These people think liberals are the devil
I guess you missed a lot of the "conversations" I've seen then lol. That's good. Frequent stress isn't good for the blood pressure.
Or yknow, maybe spend a few billion less on marketing and TV commercials?
There would be a good governmental oversight: drug companies may no longer advertise their products to the public. I don't think anyone has ever seen a drug commercial in a positive light; if the drug was effective and worked well you wouldn't need to advertise it.
Drug commercials are illegal everywhere in the world except the U.S. and New Zealand.
Moved from US to Canada and its honestly so nice not seeing or hearing ads for zoflam or whatever CONSTANTLY. You don't realize how much it's shoved in your face until it isn't anymore
I’m in the US and generally don’t watch live TV with commercials, but when I do, good god the pharmaceutical commercials!
I only usually watch TV for sports games... that being said, the new enemy is gambling commercials.
Good fucking God they're predatory
I eat the butterfly pills
Also, the taxpayers are the ones who funded the drug development in the first place!
The commercials should be illegal to begin with. My partner is from the EU and when we were back in the US she was horrified by the amount of pharma marketing everywhere.
It’s legitimately insane, every other commercial is for Pharma and every other next to that is for accident attorneys or a politician or like trumpy bear lmao
Um, not to mention this is specifically regarding TAXPAYER FUNDED drugs. We paid for them and they're price gouging and preventing people from getting access to them. It's so incredibly wrong.
So their argument is that they can't make enough money on their government subsidized drug development. Yeah ok, corpos, get fucked.
That would all be fine if they alone bore the cost for all that R&D. Clearly, thats not the case and they want to socialize the development and privatize the fruits of that development, in which case they are consequently invited to non-negotiably+kindly pound salt and go fuck themselves.
I like how that's supposed to be a compelling argument against it, "But if we open it up to competition someone else will do it cheaper and better than us and we'll go out of business." Good! Fuck your company lol.
Also the taxpayers are funding the development, which is why the government can do this. If the public pays for it, they should be able to access it as far as I'm concerned.
Maybe they could get more government funded money if they sold it at reasonable prices and kept coming out with new government funded drugs?
Does anyone really see those ads then go to a DOCTOR and ask about it? Maybe I'm in the extreme minority here but I don't have money burning a hole in my pocket to go to a doctor and if I do I want to spend the absolute least as possible
Yes they do, but also the doctors get advertised at too and pick medications for you that the marketers have recommended, regardless of whether it's the best treatment
I've often thought that this is a perfect situation in which to invoke Eminent Domain.
If the government can decide what my home is worth, and force me to sell it at that price so that they can sell it to a developer to tear down and build something else to sell to someone else, then why can't they decide what a patent is worth and force the patent holder to sell it at that price.
The patent holder should be compensated for whatever they paid to develop the technology. Obviously, if the patent is based on government funded research, then whatever the government already paid would be deducted from the value of the patent.
And now you have one step closer to negotiated price government subsidised medicine. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
If they are doing their R&D documentation correctly, the US tax code already allows for tax credits up to certain limits. In a lot of cases, it covers nearly 100% of qualified R&D coats.
Counterpoint: They took government money, the public *already" owns those drugs (in part).
If a private investor had fronted half the money for the company, they'd own half the company. The government's role here is angel investor, and it's insane to let these companies buy out their partner at the initial investment price. It's my opinion that if the US government is the majority owner of any given medication, it is in the best interest of the public that those medications be made available at cost.
More consumer protections please
But who are going to protect the poor CEOs?
Good. I'm tired of being taken advantage of by a corporate oligarchy that endlessly enriches itself at our expense.
Fuck yeah Dark Brandon
why shouldn't we get what we pay for? not for a "reasonable price" out of some sense of "public private partnership". if the people bear the cost of development the people should own the product outright.
Fuck that. We should be passing laws to reduce all patent periods over time, eventually falling either insanely low or to zero.
Hehehee, I like to imagine him talking to some of these companies on the phone about this problem and them acting all tough before he made this decision.
That's actually not that much per drug - approximately 100 million, when the average drug costs over a billion to bring to market. I think the drug companies may have a point when they say
On the other hand
I don't think it's fair for Americans to subsidize the healthcare of equally wealthy people in other countries. There's a possible win-win situation in which the US government helps protect the interests of American drug companies abroad in exchange for lower domestic prices.
This is an interesting article.
That's a nice sentiment, but the drug companies are voluntarily selling internationally at lower prices. There's no "protecting the interests" drone strike we can make when the big pharma is doing the rate setting itself (negotiating, true, but still a voluntary choice). The proper fix would be to mandate that any drug that had any Federal research may not be sold in the US for more than in any other part of the world and that fee may not exceed (make up a number) 10x the production cost, with distribution not allowed to exceed 50% of the cost of the retail price of the medication and delivery not to exceed 125% of commercial shipping rates.
The USA can do quite a lot via trade deals, but what you're suggesting actually goes a lot further than what I had in mind to force other countries to pay more for drugs rather than simply reaping the benefits of American spending. Since the majority of drug profits come from the USA, drug companies would drop low-paying foreign markets rather than reduce American prices. This would simply lock out poor countries that can't pay more than they do (maybe you would make an exception for them) but as long as the USA also enforced treaties protecting American patents, wealthy Europeans would have little choice except to pay their fair share.
(I think actually doing all that would be a major international-relations blowup, with a lot of retaliation by countries exporting to the USA. I'm also not sure it would be legal in the context of existing treaties. But it would get the job done...)
Other countries dont need to pay more for drugs. Pharma companies are taking advantage of Americans, having tax dollars fund research and then chsrging exorbitant prices to those same taxpayers.
This is a good thing.
Copyright and patent laws need to die.
Only an idiot thinks we wouldn't develop drugs without them.
Patents are written into the Constitution and are generally a good thing when enforced as they are written to be. The problem is the system has been so perverted and abused that it's a joke of what is supposed to be.
What's wrong with copyright law? It definitely needs to be reformed, in particular the term lengths and the nonsense-laden DMCA. But for the most part, it's a good thing.
While outside the scope of the article I disagree with the notion patents need to go away. If privately funded, developed, and created a patent incentivizes ingenuity and has it's place. That said, limits of some sort prevent monopolies/exploitation and are the other side of a healthy system. **If publicly funded in any way the people have a right to it.
I know Lemmy is very anti-corpo and I generally I am too. But for a personal inventor imagine spending years of your life on a project only to have your only way to seek compensation for that work taken away - unless you're a total saint you would never want to create again (or certainly wouldn't share it).
The counter point is that if it can save millions of people it certainly seems wrong to withhold it for personal gain, and so there must be a compromise somewhere or that'd make the person evil (which most corporations end up being).
Not sure if it applies here, but I remember reading something years ago about how more patents now are either "Product Patents" (mainly used in Developed countries) vs "Process Patents" (used more in Developing countries). A Product patent protects the end result, no matter how it gets made, whereas Process patents just protect the way that it's made and don't forbid anyone from making the end result, they just can't make it the same way.
Product patents almost seemed designed to stifle innovation, since it prevents anybody else from coming up with a more efficient method for creating the thing, whereas Process patents still allow for others to get into the market and come up with better/cheaper ways of making the thing.
It might be hard to protect Drugs though, since probably the bulk of the resources spent on it is going to be all that up-front research that needs to be done, then manufacturing it is probably trivial in alot of cases. Maybe there could be something done where all drugs that get Government-funding are available to anyone to produce, but anyone outside of the patent-holder that produces them must pay some sort of small "licensing fee" for the right to produce them (for X years), otherwise no one else is prevented from producing/selling the drugs. Just something that could help keep drug companies from going overboard with their insane pricing schemes, but still allows them to recoup the money they put into research.
"Won't someone think of the billion dollar drug corporation? They're the real victims of this abuse of executive power!" - Republicans right now, probably.
Anything but
metricuniversal healthcare."Best we can offer is a Republican created plan to offer insurance outside of employment and an additional tax if you don't/can't participate in it." ~Democrats
-- to make it less offensive to the Republicans and a handful of "moderate" Democrats so it stood a chance of actually becoming law. It didn't even pass in its original form due to a Republican led filibuster: the Bill's backers didn't have the votes to overcome it, so they had to make concessions. Unfortunately that's how Congress works.
The idea Democrats could have passed a bill for universal healthcare is absurd. Any serious attempt to pass it would have been shut down. The parties aren't homogeneous entities: they're made up of individuals with their own agendas.
I think you may be white washing what occurred at the time. Obama made concessions to appeal to Republicans but they weren't needed to pass the bill and none of them even voted for it in the end (apart from 1 House Republican). Democrats had a super majority at the time with 60 senate seats.
https://ballotpedia.org/Obamacare_overview
Best we can do is... [check notes]....
Fine you.
"Seize" is a really weird term to apply to something that only exists as an idea. Especially an idea that only has meaning because governments actively enforce it. It would make more sense to say Biden plans to end enforcement of the relevant patents.
It seems like the language of the article is designed to paint Biden's plan in a bad light.
Cue the legal bickering over what counts as "reasonable". I think the definition is clear: the only reasonable price for medicine is the lowest possible price. And the only way to ensure that is to not award drug patents in the first place (at all, but especially if development was funded by taxpayers).
He does this in time, I won't feel bad for voting for him just to stop Trump's immenant objective of Tyrrany of Obvious Lies and Theft.
“You’re killing me”! - Drug Companies “Good” -Me
With the R's and D's history of both being completely owned by the same oligarchs in mind, this sounds like a framework that will be used to crush smaller pharmaceutical companies and give patents to the all ready huge ones... I might just be super critical, correct me if I'm wrong...
It's not like there is a cottage industry of small time pharmaceutical companies these days. The smaller ones that exist mostly just focus on making generic forms of drugs that jave expired patents.
Yes, true, but what i'm trying to ask is; is there any safeguard in the bill preventing it from being used to crush the few smaller ones?
https://youtu.be/rLXWqdry3Qc?si=LItEsEzrkK2DTL2D
I'm extremely torn about this. First of all, I've been saying for a long time, that the biggest problem with the American health system is the costs of everything, and not the lack of insurance. Bring the costs down, and insurance is either not needed, or should be able to be procured much more cheaply, so this move will help with that, which is a good thing.
Second, patents are in place for a reason. If you invent something, you have the right to sell it, at least for a period of time, without it being ripped off by someone else. Patents are used all the time, all around the world, and are typically protected. This is a form of theft, and I think a possible slippery slope, as it sets a precedent going forward. And yes, I'm aware that they are doing this with drugs funded by the taxpayers. If they want to do this, it should be a stipulation when the company gets the government funding, and not done after the fact.
Doing research that is significantly funded by the government, but then you get to keep sole control of it and abuse that position to harm subjects of the government that made 'your' patent even exist is a problem. I'm absolutely ok with the government threatening to take that control back. If you don't want that threat, then entirely fund it yourself. If you don't want the government to actually execute the threat than charge reasonable prices. You still get your control and your profits, you just can't be a dick about it.
There's no slippery slope at all here.
This sounds like highway robbery. If the government wants patent rights for things they funded, they should include those terms in the grants and not do it after the fact.
They do:
You have certainly earned that nick. Hang on, I've got scissors around here somewhere...
In that case fuck the pharma companies, exercise the shit out of that contract.
Cope and seethe.
I'm neither coping nor seething. This looks like a bad policy to me and I'm describing exactly why with very little emotional investment.
Biden knows this. Pay attention to the press release.
"Ordered to consider..." Means this is a PR move.
I think it's fine to argue robbery of some sort, but "highway robbery" is pushing it.
At worst both are wrong. The problem that led to this is that the patent was generated from tax payer money, and now the owner of the patent is exploiting those same tax payers.
Imagine unironically playing such a small violin.