FIRST IN PULSE: MARCH-IN PUSH — A group of more than 40 House and Senate Democrats led by Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) and Angus King (I-Maine) is pushing the Biden administration to further assert its authority to seize certain drug patents. The move will come in formal remarks in response to a request for public comment on the framework the administration proposed in December. “The Biden Administration must make substantial revisions to increase transparency, remove Big Pharma fear-mongering language, and assume the responsibility of proactively reviewing all taxpayer-funded inventions to determine whether licensees are meeting their obligation to provide a product on reasonable terms,” Doggett told Pulse in a statement. Progressives have long called for the administration to assert so-called march-in rights on drugs — giving patent licenses for drugs developed using public funds to others or taking them — to curb drug prices. The administration has not endorsed widespread use of such rights. The pharmaceutical industry has blasted the proposal, saying it would hamper innovation and hurt patients. PhRMA CEO Steve Ubl has said drugmakers are weighing legal options if the administration moves forward. Senate HELP ranking member Bill Cassidy (R-La.) has said the administration doesn’t have the authority to assert march-in rights. QALY BILL CLEARS RULES — The House Rules Committee along party lines advanced legislation that would ban a health care metric, setting up a floor vote later this week. The legislation would prohibit the use of quality-adjusted life years, or QALYs, in federal programs. The metric assesses a drug’s impact on health outcomes and quality of life. Its use is banned in Medicare and the bill from Energy and Commerce Chair Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) would extend the ban to Medicaid, the VA and other programs. Proponents of such a ban argue that the statistic discriminates against people with disabilities by discounting how much treatments can help them. Democrats were skeptical, pushing back against the pay-for — the Prevention and Public Health Fund — which Democrats have used before for other priorities. They also said it could undermine efforts to lower drug costs. “The argument on the pay-for is pretty weak,” Rodgers said. “We are not going to cut any funding.” E&C ranking member Rep. Frank Pallone (R-N.J.) said the bill language was vague, which would enable legal challenges from the pharmaceutical industry. The Biden administration also came out against the bill, saying the pay-for would undermine “critical investments in health.” Rodgers said she still wants to work on a bipartisan deal. REPUBLICANS RALLY AGAINST PANDEMIC TREATY — Two GOP House members who lead health panels demanded Monday that the Biden administration submit to the Senate for ratification an agreement on pandemic prevention and response, which is being negotiated at the World Health Organization, Carmen reports. Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), who chairs the House Foreign Affairs’ subcommittee for global health, said he worries about demands included in the text being negotiated in Geneva for sharing future tests, vaccines and drugs developed in response to an outbreak for global sharing. Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), the chair of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, demanded that any potential treaty doesn’t infringe on U.S. sovereignty and protects intellectual property. That’s in line with the Biden administration’s position in the negotiations, saying it opposes waiving patent rules in future pandemics. Why it matters: Republican opposition to a treaty, which is under a May deadline, would make it virtually impossible for the U.S. to become party to the agreement.
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