Should the U.S. government be in the business of manufacturing COVID-19 vaccines? Several prominent Democratic senators and representatives would say yes.
Instead of waiting for Congress to come up with a solution to reduce drug prices, a trio of U.S. lawmakers told the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) it needs to tackle drug prices with the tools it already has – compulsory licensing and march-in rights.
In the debate over the interpretation of the U.S. government’s patent march-in rights under the Bayh-Dole Act, those arguing for march-in as a price control cite the billions of tax dollars being invested in scientific research at universities that may lead to marketable inventions.
Nearly 16,500 groups and individuals put in their two cents on a proposed National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) rule clarifying that the U.S. government, under the Bayh-Dole Act, can’t march in on patents derived from federally funded research just because it doesn’t consider the price of the resulting product “reasonable.”
Citing the limited supplies and the pricing of the COVID-19 therapy, nearly three dozen U.S. states and territories are clamoring for the federal government to march in on Gilead Sciences Inc.’s patents for remdesivir. And if the feds won’t, then states should be given that authority, according to a letter sent Tuesday to the Department of Health and Human Services, the NIH and the FDA.
Given all the public-private partnerships responding to the need for timely COVID-19 therapies, diagnostics and vaccines, the demands to forgo patents or exclusive licenses for coronavirus products and the clamor that industry shouldn’t “profit” from U.S. taxpayer-supported research are growing louder.