In another bid to lower prescription drug prices, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) issued a report showing that medicines developed with help from the National Institutes of Health have often cost Americans more than what is paid in other countries. And he called on the agency to reinstate a provision in federal law that would require companies to set reasonable prices when they license NIH inventions.
After analyzing 15 medicines developed with help from NIH scientists, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee — which Sanders chairs — found the average price for those treatments over the past 20 years was $111,000. This was more than 10 times the price that led the NIH to introduce a reasonable pricing clause in its contracts in 1989, although it was removed six years later.
“Now is the time for the Biden administration to take executive action to substantially lower the price of prescription drugs and to take on the unacceptable corporate greed of the pharmaceutical industry,” Sanders said in a statement. He added that the price of some of the drugs developed with help from taxpayer funds now exceeds $1.9 million.
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