At the center of Biden’s proposal is the Bayh-Dole Act, a landmark 1980 law that allowed federally funded professors and universities to patent their research discoveries and license the patents to private-sector firms for further development. It incentivized and thereby greatly increased the amount of innovations coming out of universities.
For years, activists have petitioned the government to invoke the law’s “march-in” provision to revoke private firms’ patent licenses on certain expensive medicines. Washington could then relicense those patents to companies that would create cheaper generic versions
Contrary to the administration’s claims, the new guidance won’t have much of an impact on drug costs. A 2023 study from Vital Transformation found that 99% of 361 sampled pharmaceutical products could not be marched in upon — because the overwhelming majority relied on at least some patents that were never funded by the government. That means generic companies, even if the government relicensed some of the patents to them, wouldn’t be able to legally replicate the drugs in their entirety.
