Competition: an antidote to the high price of prescription drugs.
Patent protection and factors unique to prescription drugs weaken the forces keeping prices near costs for other products. A growing public consensus that affordable drugs should be available to all is likely to increase the upward pressure on prices. To restore competition to all parts of the pharmaceutical industry, we propose a new institute at the National Institutes of Health that would compete with the private sector for pharmaceutical intellectual property by establishing competition for research and development contracts open to public and private institutions; retain the resulting patents; and grant cost-free, nonexclusive licenses to all qualified producers.
Stein
Peter
P
Department of Physics, Cornell Institute of Public Affairs, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA. pcs1@cornell.edu
Valery
Ernst
E
D003363:Cost Control; D004345:Drug Industry / Q000191:economics; D011307:Drug Prescriptions / Q000191:economics*; D004465:Economic Competition; D035082:Federal Government; D010067:Ownership; D010330:Patents as Topic; D014481:United States