New approach to lower drug prices

The federal government has looked at various ways of reducing prescription drug costs, including allowing Medicare to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies. KFF Health News reported on an effort by the federal government to invalidate patents held by drug manufacturers.

Before this effort, competitors (e.g. generic drug manufacturers) needed to pay to challenge patents protecting medicines that they wanted to produce. Apparently, in those cases, challenging some medication patents would automatically trigger a delay for the challenger's FDA approval process. It is unclear why that delay was made into policy. Theoretically, by invalidating some of these patents, the federal government is lowering the cost for makers of generics to offer more affordable alternatives.