ETHIC Act would Address Patent Thickets, Curb High Drug Prices
Dozens of organizations and experts urge House Judiciary Committee to combat monopoly abuse
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The ETHIC Act would help combat monopoly abuse by allowing branded drug companies to assert only one patent per family of patents in litigation, opening the door for an increase in cheaper, generic and biosimilar drug options for patients, urge experts and organizations in a letter led by Public Citizen to the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, calling for the committee to mark up the legislation.
One of the ways prescription drug corporations expand their monopoly pricing power is by filing multiple patent applications with small changes that build on a previously filed parent patent, also known as patent thickets. When drug corporations form dense patent thickets that strengthen their monopolies, patients are hit with higher costs, health care access is limited and companies are less incentivized to make true therapeutic advancements.
“When pharma companies lengthen and strengthen patent monopolies through legal tricks like patent thicketing, everyone loses, except for corporate profits,” said Public Citizen Drug Pricing Advocate Steve Knievel. “The ETHIC Act would help patients get more affordable generic and biosimilar medicines sooner by disrupting this anticompetitive tactic.
“The ETHIC Act is an important first step in helping curb the legal schemes the pharmaceutical industry uses to build patent thickets that are then used to extend their market monopoly and block competition at the expense of payers and patients,” said Tahir Amin, Co-Founder and chief executive officer of the Initiative for Medicines, Access & Knowledge (I-MAK.) “For too long our patent system has been captured by the interests of the pharmaceutical industry. The ETHIC Act would help to correct some of that power imbalance.