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On Tuesday April 9, 2024, the Union for Affordable Cancer Treatment (UACT), Knowledge Ecology International (KEI), and Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM) requested that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) use the rights afforded to the government in 35 U.S.C. § 202 and 28 U.S.C. § 1498 on patents on the prostate cancer drug Xtandi (enzalutamide). As noted in the request letter, “The U.S. government has a “world wide nonexclusive, nontransferrable, irrevocable, paid-up license to practice or have practiced for or on behalf of the United States any subject invention throughout the world” (35 USC § 202(c)(4)). This worldwide paid-up license canRead More →

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Today President Trump promised (again) that he would bring down drug prices and put American patients first. The administration’s approach is to change how Medicare Part B (coverage available as an option for American residents when they are 65 years old or older, or if they qualify through a disability) pays for some of the most expensive prescription drugs, and attempts to imitate (irony alert) what President Trump blames other countries for doing: negotiating prices for their citizens, based largely upon the foreign prices themselves. A planned “international pricing index” (IPI), would cap certain Medicare Part B drug prices to an index from 16 otherRead More →

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On November 6, 2017, UACT sent a letter to the US Congress, supporting legislation to permit the United States to negotiate prices for drugs reimbursed by the Medicare program, but also ask the Congress to include language on compulsory licensing of patents, in order to ensure that when there is a dispute over the price, the monopoly is put at risk, rather than the patient.   The letter also asks Congress to enact measures to enhance the transparency of R&D costs and drug manufacturing know-how, and under feasibility studies of delinkage. A copy of the letter is available as a PDF, here , and reads as follows: NovemberRead More →