Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) recently introduced the Medicare Negotiation and Competitive Licensing Act of 2018. Lest the title confuse you, by “competitive licensing” Rep. Doggett means compulsory licensing anytime a company declines to sell their drug for whatever price the Secretary of Health and Human Services cares to offer during “Medicare negotiations” where the government holds all the cards. Past attempts to impose artificial “reasonable pricing” requirements on developers of government supported inventions did not result in cheaper drugs. A study titled Compulsory Licensing Often Did Not Produce Lower Prices For Antiretrovirals Compared to International Procurement found that resulting drug prices were often higher than they would have been under a more cooperative approach.
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