24 April 2019 – Today the Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technologies (NIST) released its Green Paper on Return on Public Investment. The Union for Affordable Cancer Treatment (UACT) strongly opposes this push by the Trump Administration to hamstring patient safeguards ensuring equitable and affordable access to medicines. A draft Green Paper published on December 6, 2018 included proposals designed to narrow and even eliminate important safeguards in the Bayh-Dole Act. Those damaging proposals remained in the final publication. The NIST proposals will harm patients seeking access to treatment and will instead protect the pharmaceutical companies that sell expensive drugs, vaccines, diagnosticRead More →

In December 2018, the National Institute of Standards and Technologies (NIST) (a part of the Department of Commerce) published a draft Green Paper, titled “Return on Investment Initiative for Unleashing American Innovation” (NIST Special Publication 1234). A copy of the draft Green Paper is available here: https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.1234 The draft Green Paper was published after the launch of an April 2018 initiative, “Unleashing American Innovation Symposium” and followed four public hearings and a request for comments noticed on May 1, 2018 (83 FR 19052). The initial comment period closed July 30, 2018. UACT drafted a letter to raise the alarm in members of Congress that anRead More →

On Wednesday December 5, 2018, UACT, along with KEI, Social Security Works, Health GAP, Public Citizen, Dr. Ophira Ginsburg, and James Love, submitted joint comments in response to a proposed exclusive license for patents on CAR T technology for the treatment of cancers. The Federal Register notice (83 FR 58262) “Prospective Grant of an Exclusive Patent License: Development and Commercialization of Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) Therapies for the Treatment of FMS-Like Tyrosine Kinase 3 (FLT3) Expressing Cancers,” outlined the National Institutes of Health’s intent to grant an exclusive license on these technologies to ElevateBio, a company whose leadership includes the investors behind recent budget-breaking treatments,Read More →

On October 31, 2018 UACT sent the following letter to President Trump regarding his statements about protections for pre-existing conditions in the lead up to the midterm elections. A PDF of the letter is available here.   Union for Affordable Cancer Treatment 1621 Connecticut Avenue NW Suite 500 Washington, DC 20009 Tel.: 202.332.2670 www.uact.org October 31, 2018 President Donald Trump The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 President Trump, I am writing on behalf of the Union for Affordable Cancer Treatment (UACT) to say that we are appalled that you are now claiming that the Republican party will protect patients with pre-existingRead More →

The following are comments by the Union for Affordable Cancer Treatment (UACT) on the HHS Blueprint to Lower Drug Prices and Reduce Out-of-Pocket Costs, in response to the notice published in the Federal Register, 83 FR 22692. Element II.B. of the notice asks, “What policies should the U.S. government pursue in order to protect IP rights and address concerns around compulsory licensing” in OECD countries, which “are not paying an appropriate share of the necessary research and development to bring innovative drugs to the market and are instead freeriding off U.S. consumers and taxpayers.” 1. UACT rejects the premise put forth by the Blueprint thatRead More →