“They should question Kennedy directly about his views on patent relaxation,” writes … [+]
On Wednesday and Thursday, two powerful senate committees will hold confirmation sessions for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump’s candidate to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
RFK Jr. is not a stranger to controversy. But its most radical position of politics can be the one that a few people talk about relatively.
Politico recently reported that RFK Jr. has “expressed openings” to capture the patents of drug companies and renewing them to generic manufacturers – an action that would effectively apply roundabouts checks on some of the most prescribed medicines in the country.
RFK team Jr. opposed that report, claiming the allegations are simply “an attempt to denigrate” it. Ordinary Americans should hope that is the case.
But senators for finance and health, education, work and pensions (help) committees can do more than hope. They should question Kennedy directly about his views on patent relicing-and increasing the entire US high-tech economy in the process.
The idea of capturing drug patents to control prices has long been a goal of progressors, including former President Biden. The strategy depends on a deliberate misinterpretation of the Bayh-Dole act, the bipartisan law that created a way to convert the Federation-funded research discoveries into commercial products.
Bayh-Dole Act empowered federation-funded universities and non-profits to keep patents in their research-discoveries-and license them patents for private companies interested in turning promising ideas into real world medicines, medical equipment and Other high -tech products.
Prior to the Bayh-Dole act, the government kept the rights for every patent arising from the federation-funded research. And the government rarely licensed those patents for private sector companies. So taxpayer funded research went effectively to waste. Scientists made great discoveries – but consumers never saw the benefits in the form of new products.
In nearly 45 years since its passage, the Bayh-Dole Act has made the United States the leading developer in the world for new cures and treatments. The law has prompted the creation of more than 200 new medicines and vaccines, as well as the formation of about 17,000 beginners.
Bayh-Dole act describes the very limited circumstances in which the government can “march” in a patent to forcibly restore it. For example, if a company has licensed a patent for a necessary experimental vaccine urgently benefited from federal funds, but proves incompetent or ignorant to make that vaccine available commercial, the government has the authority to capture the patent and regenerate it with another company.
But the march government authority is so potentially counterproductive and so tight that past administrations have uniformly rejected calls to hire it. Under Trump’s first administration, the National Institute of Standards and Technology made it clear that ”
Left activists are trying to change it. They have claimed for years that the government can and must liberate the patent march rights for any product that is considered unreasonable.
This is a great misunderstanding of the Bayh-Dole act. The authors of the law, the sense. Birch Bayh (D-in) and Bob Dole (R-KS) clearly stated that “the government’s ability to revoke a license based on this law is not conditioned at the price of a resulting product. “
If RFK Jr. It would approve this radical interpretation as HHS secretary, the consequences for our most innovative and manufacturing industries would be catastrophic.
For beginners, the misuse of march rights in March would have all the catastrophic obstacles of traditional price controls. And it would present extreme financial uncertainty in the business of licensing, development, production and distribution of life -saving medicines, discouraging investments in medical science for the coming years.
Few biotechnical companies would be interested in licensing promising research ideas of a federation -funded university if government bureaucrats can arbitrarily rip that licensing agreement for a wonder – as companies invested years and billions of dollars in further research and development of medicines.
The harmful consequences would extend beyond the health care sector. The arbitrary explosion of exclusive patent licensing agreements would open the door to confiscate the government with a majority of promising technologies. It would give companies in all high -tech sectors less reason to invest their time and resources in developing new technologies that arise from taxpayer -funded research.
Instead of ensuring that Americans get new life products, misuse of marching in march will ensure that taxpayers funded research finds never make them outside the laboratory.
Does the other potential leader of the government’s most expensive department understand this fundamental reality? It depends on the senators to detect it.