Tuesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on drug competition was largely as expected: Committee members voiced support for legislative reforms to address features of the current patent system that result in abuses that excessively limit competition.
In 2019, the Committee moved legislation to prevent brand drug companies from amassing superfluous patents around their products—a strategy that, as we’ve written before, is uniquely problematic in the United States.
Yesterday, the Initiative for Medicines, Access, and Knowledge I-MAK took an important step by proposing six policy solutions to address patent thickets that block generic and biosimilar drug competition.
MGA has released a new report today for the Coalition for Affordable Prescription Drugs (CAPD), “Patent Thickets and Lost Drug Savings.”
Biosimilars represent a significant cost-savings opportunity in the United States because they can introduce competition for some of the most expensive and widely used prescription drugs on the market: originator biologics. Several market and regulatory barriers have slowed biosimilar market entry and uptake in the United States.
