MONTH-IN-BRIEF (Feb 2024)
Antitrust Law
FTC Promotes Bayh-Dole Act’s Patent ‘March-In’ Rights to Lower Pharmaceutical Prices
By Barbara Sicalides, Julian Weiss, and Brett Broczkowski, Troutman, Pepper, Hamilton, Sanders, LLP
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently took the next step in its long-standing effort to encourage lower prices and increase competition in the pharmaceutical industry. On February 6, the FTC announced its support for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Interagency Working Group for Bayh-Dole on their Draft Interagency Guidance Framework for Considering the Exercise of March-In Rights (“Draft”). The FTC described the Draft as an “effort[] to reactivate an important check on companies charging Americans high prices for drugs that taxpayers funded.”