Press Release: BIO Strongly Opposes Compulsory Licensing Legislation

[James Love <love@cptech.org>]

BIO Strongly Opposes Compulsory Licensing
Legislation


http://www.bio.org/news/article.html?XP_PUB=press_release&XP_TABLE=articles.db&XP_RECORD=1999_0923_02

Biotechnology Industry Organization
            1625 K Street NW, Suite 1100 
Washington DC 20006 (202)857-0244 

News Release 

For Immediate Release
09/23/1999 

Contact: 
Charles Craig
202-857-0244 


BIO Strongly Opposes Compulsory Licensing
Legislation

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Sept. 23, 1999) The Biotechnology Industry
Organization (BIO) strongly opposed a bill introduced today by
U.S. Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), saying it would undermine
this nation's reliance on private sector investment and
innovation
in health care and deprive patients of new life-saving medicines.

The proposed legislation would establish compulsory licensing of
any and all "health related" patents by their owners to another
company if the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services finds it is "necessary to alleviate health or
safety
needs which are not adequately satisfied by the patent holder."

BIO's vice president of government relations, Chuck Ludlam, said
"This legislation is an unprecedented assault on our free
enterprise system. The main intent of Brown's bill apparently is
to
control prescription drug prices by forcing companies to sell
their
products at below market value or risk having their intellectual
property confiscated. The precedent it would set for others, such
as software and electronics inventors, is breathtaking.

"Congressman Brown's legislation, however, not only gives
government effective control of drug pricing, but also allows it
to
manipulate formulation, manufacturing, marketing, distribution
and
research. For biotech companies, it would be like being placed in
front of a firing squad that is ordered to shoot as soon as you
do
something the government doesn't like.

"This bill would severely impede new drug development," Ludlam
added, "hurting the patients Congressman Brown says he is trying
to help. Most of the biotech medicines on the market and in
development are aimed at diseases where no treatments currently
are available.

"Private capital investment is the life-blood of our
research-based industry and that financial support is built on
strong product patent portfolios, which allow our companies
limited market protection against competitors. Without that
market
protection, biotech companies would have no way of recouping
the hundreds of millions of dollars it takes to develop a drug,
and
investors would have no incentive to risk their money.

"The capital markets need to know that this is not a mainstream
proposal with any prospect for enactment," Ludlam emphasized.
"It stakes out one extreme in the ongoing Congressional debate
on access to drugs.

"Congressman Brown in the past has supported biomedical
research and the development of new therapies and cures for our
most intractable and debilitating diseases. This bill contradicts
that
position.

"We strongly urge Congress to reject this attempt to substitute
government controls for a free market system that has given us
the
most advanced health care in the world."

BIO represents more than 830 biotech companies, academic
institutions and state biotech centers in 47 states and 26
nations.
Its members are involved in the research and development of
health care, agricultural, industrial and environmental
biotechnology products. 

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-- 
James Love / Director, Consumer Project on Technology
http://www.cptech.org / love@cptech.org
P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036
voice 202.387.8030 / fax 202.234.5176