McKool Smith principal Nick Matich provided commentary to Intellectual Property Magazine article on President Biden calling on Federal Trade Commission to ban pay-for-delay agreements between pharmaceutical companies. Nick said, “Many products in the pharmaceutical industry are covered by patents that were developed with government funds, so the executive order’s provision calling on the Department of Commerce not to finalize the currently proposed Bayh-Dole regulations could have a significant impact in the bio-pharma space. HHS Secretary Becerra has previously indicated his desire to exercise march-in-rights on these patents to compel companies lower drug prices. It’s at least an open legal question whether the government can do that, with or without the proposed regulations, and it will be interesting to see how the industry responds to that part of the order. I would expect to see at least some companies mount challenges to any attempt to use the march-in-rights in that way.” Read the article here.
