ABSTRACT
… To clarify the tradeoffs policymakers face in formulating innovation incentives, this Note provides a conceptual framework for understanding pharmaceutical innovation, describes the US government’s current approach to incentivizing drug development, and explains why recent proposals for government intervention in drug development markets are too politically fraught to gain the broad legislative support necessary to increase access to medicines in practice. Instead, this Note proposes ‘value-agnostic’ programs, which indirectly influence innovation while leaving original disease- and drug-level value judgments in private hands, as a more realistic path for pharmaceutical reform. This Note suggests, as one example of this framework, a patent buyout system that enables the US government to nudge pricing while substantially maintaining current innovation incentives. Specifically, before selling or exclusively licensing an approved drug or drug candidate, recipients of certain federal drug discovery subsidies would first be required to auction off related patents, with the US government maintaining the right to purchase or license at the second-highest bid price.
Amy C Madl, Using Value-Agnostic Incentives to Promote Pharmaceutical Innovation, Stanford Law Review volume 71, issue 5, May 2019, page 1305.
First posted 2019-06-12 14:45:56
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