Conservative Groups Rally Against COVID-19 Drug Price Control Measures

Thirty-one conservative groups have sent a letter to Congress challenging a proposal by Democrats to limit COVID-19 drug prices by denying patents, exclusivity and intellectual property rights.

The groups criticized the proposal by Reps. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) to have the pricing measures included in the next coronavirus response package.

The proposal would deny drug companies patent and intellectual property rights for any COVID-19 vaccines, drugs and therapeutics, whether or not the development was assisted by U.S. tax dollars.

It also seeks to bar drugmakers from placing an “unreasonable price” on COVID-19 products and requires them to publicly report total expenditures on research and development, including government funding, as well as materials and manufacturing and postmarket expenses.

The groups, including Conservatives for Property Rights, the Center for a Free Economy and the American Conservative Union, argued that the Democratic-led proposal would stifle incentives for innovation and take away a fundamental freedom afforded to inventors in the U.S.

“The right to exclude others from the newly created property of an invention, including from making, selling, using or importing a protected invention such as a drug, is balanced by full disclosure of the invention,” the groups said. “This ‘patent bargain’ of exclusivity for the patentee and technological learnings for everybody else, including the patentee’s competitors, has served the U.S. and the American people exceptionally well.”

The group’s letter cited a ranking Democrat on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), who recently argued that pharma companies need to be able to recover their costs and turn a profit if the industry is expected to be innovative and said their ability to do so relies heavily on intellectual property rights.

They also quoted Anthony Fauci, director for NIH’s National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), as saying he has not seen vaccines priced at unaffordable rates when the U.S. was involved in their development.

“We urge Congress to spurn the destruction of the dynamo at the heart of America’s innovation: intellectual property and free enterprise,” the group said. “Do not let these misguided proposals become part of any legislation. Send them back to the pit full of bad ideas.”

The EU and multiple international groups, including the World Health Organization (WHO), have called for voluntary patent sharing by drugmakers to increase access to any approved COVID-19 treatments and vaccines. They have also called for products aided by government funding to be ineligible for patent exclusivity. These strategies have been rejected by some pharma industry CEOs, who argue that companies have invested billions of dollars in their efforts and need the incentive of patent exclusivity (DID, May 29).

Read the letter here: www.fdanews.com/06-05-20-Congress.pdf. — James Miessler