ICYMI: SENATOR CORNYN DELIVERS REMARKS ON U.S. SENATE PASSAGE OF PATENT THICKET CRACKDOWN

Lawmakers Unanimously Advance Bipartisan Solution to Help Hold Big Pharma Accountable for Egregious Patent Abuse, Boost Competition to Lower Drug Prices

In case you missed it, the U.S. Senate voted unanimously Thursday to pass an amended version of The Affordable Prescriptions for Patients Act (S. 150), also known as Cornyn-Blumenthal, that would crack down on Big Pharma’s egregious patent thickets.

On the U.S. Senate floor, ahead of the bill’s passage by unanimous consent, U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), an original sponsor of the legislation, delivered remarks highlighting the importance of this market-based solution that will hold Big Pharma accountable for abuse of the patent system that blocks competition from more affordable alternatives and imposes billions of dollars in higher drug costs on patients and the U.S. health care system each year.

Senator Cornyn spoke about the bipartisan work that went into advancing this solution to help lower prescription drug prices for patients.

“The legislation that we are going to pass here momentarily by unanimous consent has been seven years in the making but will actually address the problem of high drug prices.

In the last few years, I’ve certainly heard from my constituents in Texas about the struggle to obtain their medication at affordable cost. It’s not because no treatment exists or because they don’t have insurance or because it’s a brand-new drug that just hit the market.

Many patients can’t afford prescriptions they’ve been taking for years because the prices continue to go up and there’s little evidence of anything to justify those price increases…

Senators from both sides of the aisle on a bipartisan basis have offered a number of bills to try to get at this problem of high drug prices. One of these is a bipartisan bill that I introduced with Senator Richard Blumenthal from Connecticut called the Affordable Prescriptions for Patients Act. This legislation addresses one of the most egregious practices contributing to high drug prices which is patent abuse.”

Senator Cornyn also explained how Big Pharma games the patent system via patent thickets and how this legislation is designed to prevent these tactics.

“Our country offers robust protection for intellectual property. In other words, if you’re going to do the research and development and go through the expense and take the risk associated with creating something new and innovative like a new drug to treat a deadly disease, our laws allow it the right to sell that drug on an exclusive basis for a period of time.

I think it’s very important to incentivize that sort of innovation and research and it produces lifesaving drugs. We know that many companies are unlikely to pour the expensive resources into discovering new cures if at the end of it, they can’t even recoup their own costs, much less make a profit, That’s where our patent system comes in. It’s as old as our country is old.

The patent system provides a limited time period for the manufacturer to be the sole seller in the marketplace before a generic version can become available. But some companies are abusing the system. They’re taking extreme steps to maintain their exclusivity for a drug and keep the money rolling in.

One way they do this is through a practice known as patent thicketing. This involves creating intricate webs of patents to keep the competition at bay as long as possible because as long as you can continue to sell these drugs on an exclusive basis, the money is going to keep coming in and it will not go generic and result in competition from others.

The Affordable Prescriptions for Patients Act aims to stop this anti-competitive behavior and allow new drugs to come to market sooner. That’s how we improve competition and ultimately lower prices for patients without standing in the way of innovation.”

And, Senator Cornyn spoke about the savings this bill will deliver, both for the federal government and for patients.

“The added benefit to this bill is the federal savings that it would provide for taxpayers. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that this bill would lead to lower federal spending by $1.8 billion over 10 years at a time when our national debt is at an all-time high, approaching $35 trillion.

Anything we can do to help deal with that rising debt; I think should be regarded as a positive. And this is just the savings to the federal government for Medicare and Medicaid. There will undoubtedly be significant savings for consumers who have private health insurance on top of that.

This bipartisan legislation checks every box. It protects innovation, it increases competition, and it saves money for taxpayers and consumers. And most importantly, it lowers prices at a time when many patients are seeing their drug prices go up and up and up. Apparently without end.”

Senator Cornyn’s full remarks on the U.S. Senate passage of S. 150, The Affordable Prescriptions for Patients, can be viewed below.

Read CSRxP’s statement on the U.S. Senate passage of Cornyn-Blumenthal HERE.

Read more on how Big Pharma’s patent abuse tactics drive increased costs for consumers and the U.S. health care system HERE.

Read more on market-based solutions to hold Big Pharma accountable and lower prescription drug prices HERE.