The White House is threatening the patents of high-priced drugs developed with taxpayer dollars

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The White House is threatening the patents of high-priced drugs developed with taxpayer dollars
apnews.com

The Biden administration is putting pharmaceutical companies on notice, warning them that if the price of certain drugs is too high, the government might cancel their patent protection and allow rivals to make their own versions.

Under a plan announced Thursday, the government would consider overriding the patent for high-priced drugs that have been developed with the help of taxpayer money and letting competitors make them in hopes of driving down the cost.

In a 15-second video released to YouTube on Wednesday night, President Joe Biden promised the move would lower prices.

“Today, we’re taking a very important step toward ending price gouging so you don’t have to pay more for the medicine you need,” he said.

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Just fucking do it

That's what they're doing! They are announcing a new executive department regulation about implementation of a specific law. You have to propose the regulation first. A public comment period and other mandatory things have to follow. The regulation they're proposing is that they will also consider high drug prices and gouging by pharmaceuticals in their decision making on whether to over ride patent rights. Previously this was not a regulation, so they can not do it right now. Once the regulation is in place, then they can start taking specific actions on drug companies. If they just start doing shit willy nilly without going through the process of new regulations, it'll just get struck down by the courts in a nanosecond. That's why a lot of the dumb horrible crap trump tried to do got struck down well before Biden even took office.

why actually do something when you can score huge amounts of political points by merely threatening to do something?

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It’s Biden, he won’t actually DO anything, just talk about it and not actually do it

Just like he talked about student loan forgiveness, and didn't do anything.... Oh wait....

To be fair pretty much all he’s been able to do is actually allow people who qualified for it under current law actually get said relief, or did I miss something actually going through bullshit repeals?

To be fair just that is still a lot more than others have done, but that’s pretty sad that following the law is “doing a lot.”

SCOTUS prevented it not Biden. And after the case Biden immediately started on trying to get other new forgiveness through with his jurisdiction under different laws to circumvent their dubious ruling to some extent. It can't be exactly the same or scotus would strike it down again. Because that's now another new regulation there are some mandatory processes it has to go through before it can implemented, which takes some time. If they skip all that they're just giving the courts easy ammo to strike it down all over again on procedural grounds.

The draft of the new proposal has been released. Feel free to read more here.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/05/biden-administration-releases-draft-student-debt-forgiveness-proposal.html

If we want the original proposal of Biden's back, we either need a new scotus or a new law. A new law would be easier, but impossible atm with republicans in control of the house. And Biden isn't congress so yes everything he's doing has to be some new implementation of existing law.

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It’s Biden, he won’t actually DO anything, just talk about it and not actually do it

I'm not a Biden cheerleader aside from thinking he is 1000x better than Trump, but this meme is getting tired.

I’m tired of voting for the lesser of two evils democrats and getting people that blow hot air and get nothing done

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Uh, good. This should be the norm. It is all of us that pay for the research but then the profit is privatized. That should not be a thing.

Alternative idea: If a pharmaceutical company uses government funds to develop a drug, the patent is limited to 5 years and the government sets the price.

It should be a cost-plus model. They should definitely be able to make back money invested, plus some, to encourage further development.

Dude, they're going to do it anyways. Regulate them.

This is the best summary I could come up with:


WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is putting pharmaceutical companies on notice, warning them that if the price of certain drugs is too high, the government might cancel their patent protection and allow rivals to make their own versions.

Under a plan announced Thursday, the government would consider overriding the patent for high-priced drugs that have been developed with the help of taxpayer money and letting competitors make them in hopes of driving down the cost.

It’s the latest health policy pitch from a White House gearing up to make its efforts to tackle drug prices a central theme in next year’s reelection campaign.

Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, has in recent years lobbied the Health and Human Services agency to do so with certain drugs.

“This would be yet another loss for American patients who rely on public-private sector collaboration to advance new treatments and cures,” PhRMA spokesperson Megan Van Etten said.

When the public invests heavily in a private company’s drug, it’s fair to question whether they should have to pay high prices for it, said William Pierce, a former HHS official during President George W. Bush’s administration.


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