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.
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).