463
submitted 11 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] Norgur@kbin.social 22 points 11 months ago

I bet he won't even have to use this power and prices will miraculously decline by themselves. During the energy crisis after Russia attacked Ukraine, our German power companies and oil refineries came under scrutiny as a (albeit badly drafted) government program to lower gas prices just didn't lower prices at all. Our energy secretary then made an announcement that the government was checking if they could get the anti-trust-agency involved for price hiking and split up some companies if need be. The next day, die to "some lucky events on the world oil markets" prices for oil started to go down. It was a miracle!

[-] MicroWave@lemmy.world 15 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I can see that. When California announced earlier this year that it would begin to make its own insulin and sell it for $30, companies suddenly began dropping their prices to $35 to match.

https://www.npr.org/2023/03/19/1164572757/california-contract-cheap-insulin-calrx

[-] Nobody@lemmy.world 10 points 11 months ago

The vast majority of problems are caused by companies price gouging, from medicine to groceries. I just hope the threats are backed with action if they refuse to lower prices.

[-] Godric@lemmy.world 4 points 11 months ago

I've always found it interesting how the threat of government intervention gets companies to behave properly. I suppose they'd rather voluntarily be less garbage than be forced to by law.

[-] frezik@midwest.social 4 points 11 months ago

Be careful what you wish for. Congress started looking into video game violence in the 90s, threatening to put some regulations down. The industry responded by creating the ESRB and its ratings system, and congress left them alone. It's questionable if congress could have actually done anything that passes constitutional scrutiny, but the industry would have had to spend a lot of money to fight that battle, and this was a better outcome for them.

Now, I think that was initially a win for the average gamer--nothing gets banned, and the industry comes up with universal ratings guidelines. However, just like the MPAA rating system, it can be used to bully out independents. The ESRB also creates a framework for legally defending the industry's ability to put lootboxes and other exploitative gambling mechanics into games. Now you need to supervise your kid playing FIFA more than any Mortal Kombat game.

[-] greenskye@lemm.ee 1 points 11 months ago

Sorry I'm out of touch with this these days, but does the esrb even matter anymore? At least on PC a lot of games aren't even rated. Or if they are, it's barely a factor. And lots of kids just play mobile games, which also aren't rated by the ESRB either.

[-] frezik@midwest.social 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

They're still a lobbying arm of the industry. They can also slap an AO rating on something and big retailers won't carry it.

They also run e3, but that's pretty much dead now, too.

Edit: and I realized I should have said "ESA", not "ESRB". ESA is the organization, ESRB is the ratings system.

this post was submitted on 08 Dec 2023
463 points (99.4% liked)

World News

39026 readers
1167 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS