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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.
Insulin is a bit complicated. Older formulations of insulin are cheap at this point, but the newer formulations that are more convenient and easy to use are still patented and can be very expensive. There are also newer delivery mechanisms like pens that cost much more than the traditional vial and syringe.
Medical pricing is an insane clusterfuck of imaginary numbers being shuffled around, but total insulin spending in 2022 was around $22 billion. The problem is much deeper than simply needing to raise taxes to throw even more money at the problem (and you’re not going to find a simple $22 billion in taxes lying around anyway); you really need to address the core issue of why it’s been getting so expensive in the first place, and that’s a more complicated issue of corporate greed and regulatory failure. For one issue, it’s extremely hard for a manufacturer to become properly licensed to produce insulin, so there’s a huge wall any would-be competitors have to climb. Additionally, it is illegal to import it, so Americans are unable to buy insulin from other countries where it’s produced much cheaper. Obviously big pharma loves that.
https://diabetes.org/newsroom/press-releases/new-american-diabetes-association-report-finds-annual-costs-diabetes-be
Let’s be clear, just plain more effective at control. Old insulin allowed type 1 diabetics to become adults before they died young. New formulations let them live full lives. Similarly, insulin resistance in type 2 diabetics will also eventually kill them and only newer types of insulin are effective. It is a matter of life and death.