Law & Politics of Drug Price Controls & Pharma Innovation

IPWatchdog Unleashed

This week on IPWatchdog Unleashed we talk about pharmaceutical patents, pharmaceutical patent policy, and innovation.

As you may recall, back in 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act passed. And as part of that law, it gave the federal government the opportunity for the first time to “negotiate” drug prices for Medicare. The Biden Administration has viewed this as fantastic. It has allowed them to control drug prices and drug costs for Medicare. The problem is it's not really a negotiation in any fair sense of the word. What happens is the federal government identifies the drugs on which the U.S. government spends the most amount of money, and then they tell the drug companies that you will either take our offer or you will be fined, and the fines are ruinous—in the billions of dollars. So, the IRA negotiation nothing more than a price fixing, price controlling scheme.

So why is this an issue for us to consider today if the IRA passed in 2022? Literally on the way out the door, last week Health and Human Services identified 15 more drugs that are now going to be forced into this price fixing “negotiation” scheme.

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