This bill aims to reduce drug prices by limiting pharmaceutical companies' ability to use patent strategies that delay cheaper generic versions of biological drugs from reaching the market. The legislation caps the number of patents a brand-name drug maker can assert against generic competitors at 20 total patents, with no more than 10 issued after a certain date, preventing companies from filing multiple patents on minor variations of existing drugs to extend their monopoly. The bill applies to all biological product applications submitted after it becomes law and includes an exception allowing patents on new uses or treatments of drugs to still be asserted. Additionally, the bill allocates $1.8 billion to the Medicare Improvement Fund, likely to help offset costs related to increased generic drug availability. The legislation targets a practice known as "product hopping," where companies make small changes to drugs and file new patents to keep competitors out even after the original patent expires.
Take Action
Your position
Add a comment
to comment on this bill.
Annotate the text
Highlight any passage on the Summary or Full Text tab to attach a note. Annotations appear on the Annotations tab.