The Biden administration on Thursday made it clear that it is prepared to use the government’s march-in authorities on pharmaceutical companies to lower the cost of drugs developed with taxpayer funds.
Decades-old legislation gives the government the authority to compel a company to license its product to a “responsible applicant” to sell the product at a lower price. If the company refuses, then the government can “march in” and issue the license itself.
Stakeholders in the pharmaceutical realm were unsurprisingly upset to hear of the White House’s plans, with the trade group PhRMA calling it “yet another loss for American patients who rely on public-private sector collaboration to advance new treatments and cures.”
The White House responded on X, the plaform formerly known as Twittert, writing, “Oh no. We’ve upset Big Pharma again.”
Progressives applauded the move, with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) calling it a “step forward in the right direction.”
Emily Gee, senior vice president for inclusive growth at the Center for American Progress, said in a statement: “The Biden administration has made it abundantly clear that its top domestic priority is lowering costs, and today’s framework for march-in rights underscores it is following through by using every tool available to make prescription drugs more affordable.”
Both Sanders and the progressive nonprofit Public Citizen brought attention to the prostate cancer drug Xtandi as one such medication that should be targeted for cost-lowering.
Public Citizen argued the proposed march-in framework doesn’t go far enough.
“March-in can be, should be, a powerful tool to support fair pricing and access to publicly-funded medicines, as President Biden importantly suggests,” Public Citizen’s access to medicines director Peter Maybarduk said in a statement.
“Unfortunately the administration’s march-in policy is far more limited than the statute allows. It should be quickly revised to recommend use of march-in wherever publicly-funded medicines are unreasonably priced.
