ICYMI: Sen. Marshall Bill Lowering Prescription Drug Costs Heading to President’s Desk

Sen. Marshall Bill Lowering Prescription Drug Costs Heading to President’s Desk

Bryan Grabauskas

April 15, 2021

WIBW

A bill aimed at lowering the cost of prescription drugs is heading to the president’s desk. Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS), Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) co-sponsored the measure. The US House passed it Wednesday.

“As a physician, and now a U.S. Senator, I believe innovation and competition can have a profound impact on driving down the cost of health care,” Sen. Marshall said. “The current regulatory landscape unnecessarily delays patient access to FDA-approved generics. Our bipartisan legislation ensures affordable life-saving medicine while preserving innovation for cutting-edge medicine, and I’m pleased we are one step closer to this becoming law.”

The ensuring innovation act closes loopholes companies use to claim their drugs are innovative, and exploit to keep exclusive rights and prevent cheaper variations from hitting the market…

Background:

The Ensuring Innovation Act will provide clarity for drug exclusivity to prevent awarding market exclusivity to products that do not represent true innovation and unduly delay cheaper generics and biosimilars from entering the market.

If a company invents an innovative new drug, they are rewarded with exclusive right to sell that drug for a period of time. However, companies have found loopholes to claim new innovations on the same drug, that aren’t really innovations, to extend their exclusivity and prevent cheaper generics from coming to market.

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