Washington, D.C. — In response to new initiatives from the Biden administration’s to rein in the pharmaceutical industry’s price gouging of taxpayer-funded drugs and promote competition throughout the healthcare industry, the American Economic Liberties Project released the following statement.

“A new framework from the Biden administration to spur the first-ever use of march-in rights marks a critical step toward defanging Big Pharma’s price-gouging of taxpayer-funded drugs,” said Sara Sirota, Policy Analyst at the American Economic Liberties Project. “We urge the Biden administration to finalize this framework immediately and begin exercising these essential congressionally-authorized powers.”

The Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 gave the government “march-in rights” to require makers of drugs developed with federal funds to grant patent licenses to generic manufacturers. The government, however, has never exercised these rights, despite the skyrocketing costs of prescription drugs and patent abuses by pharmaceutical companies to avoid competition with more affordable generic manufacturers.

“Moreover, we’re thrilled to see more interagency cooperation between the HHS and antitrust enforcers at the FTC and DOJ to scrutinize serial acquisitions in healthcare that otherwise evade antitrust review,” Sirota added. “It’s imperative that the government not only makes this data public, but also takes decisive legal action to address potential harmful deals before they can wreak havoc on patients and workers.”

Giant insurance companies like UnitedHealth Group and other healthcare powerhouses have for years bought smaller firms that raise antitrust concerns yet fall below the reporting threshold. As a 2022 Economic Liberties policy brief explains, serial mergers and acquisitions are every bit as corrosive as big, high profile mergers, and often occur in regulatory shadows.

Learn more about Economic Liberties here.

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The American Economic Liberties Project works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. Economic Liberties believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; foreign trade arrangements support domestic security and democracy; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.