White House to back controversial patent ploy to fight drug costs, STAT says

The White House on Thursday is expected to issue a framework for the National Institutes of Health to more broadly use so-called “march-in rights,” a controversial authority that allows the government to claw back patents for certain high-priced medicines, three sources familiar with the plans told STAT’s Sarah Owermohle and Rachel Cohrs. The framework will lay out when the agency might assert this authority, and endorse using a drug’s price in that determination, in an early step that “could have major ramifications for the American pharmaceutical industry, depending on whether and how federal officials actually use the authority,” the report said. Large cap publicly traded drugmakers include AstraZeneca (AZN), Bristol Myers (BMY), Eli Lilly (LLY), GSK (GSK), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Merck (MRK), Novartis (NVS), Pfizer (PFE), Roche (RHHBY) and Sanofi (SNY).