Illustration: Natalie Peeples / Axios
Sens. Peter Welch and Josh Hawley are teaming up to introduce a bill this week seeking to lower drug prices by cracking down on "patent thickets."
Why it matters: The unusual pairing of lawmakers shows there's bipartisan support for overhauling the patent process, especially to address ways that drugmakers can game the system to delay competition from cheaper generic drugs.
What's inside: The bill targets patent thickets, in which a drug company takes out an array of patents on the same product to extend market exclusivity.
- The bill would allow drug companies to assert only one patent per thicket in litigation against a generic drugmaker, in order to streamline the process. That goes further than a bipartisan bill from Sens. John Cornyn and Richard Blumenthal, which allowed asserting a small group of patents.
- The Cornyn-Blumenthal bill passed the Senate last year by unanimous consent, a rare occurrence, and made it into the year-end health package before that package fell apart.
What's next: The bipartisan interest increases the odds that patent thicket legislation will get across the finish line this Congress.
What they're saying: "For decades, Big Pharma has exploited U.S. courts and the patent system through anticompetitive practices that prevent generic and biosimilar competitors from entering the market, forcing Vermonters to pay more out of pocket for lifesaving drugs," Welch said in a statement.
- "It's outrageous, and it's gone on for far too long."
- PhRMA has in the past raised concerns that drug patent overhaul measures would undermine the intellectual property system that incentivizes innovation.
