Today Knowledge Ecology International and the Union for Affordable Cancer Treatment (UACT [1]) petitioned the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Defense, and the National Institutes of Health, asking that they exercise either their royalty-free, non-exclusive license or federal “march-in” rights to end the monopoly on an expensive prostate cancer drug, enzalutamide, marketed as Xtandi by Astellas, a Japanese pharmaceutical company.
Xtandi was invented at UCLA on federal grants from the NIH and DoD.
The basis of the request is that the price of Xtandi is 2 to 4 times higher in the U.S. than in other high income countries, and that the “march-in” provisions in the Bayh-Dole Act should be used to protect U.S. consumers from excessive prices.
The average wholesale price (AWP) for Xtandi is $88.48 per capsule in the U.S., more than three times the price Astellas charges in Japan and more than four times the price in Canada.
Attached to this blog post is a pdf of the request, and of the press release.
Press Coverage
Ed Silverman, “Taxpayer money helped create this cancer drug. Should we be able to force the price down? [2],” Pharmalot, Stat News, Boston Globe, Jan. 14, 2016.
Carolyn Y. Johnson, “Taxpayers helped fund this $129,000 cancer drug. Should the government help cut the price? [3],” Washington Post, Jan. 14, 2016.
Emily Wasserman, “NIH and HHS get ‘march-in’ request for Astellas’ Xtandi [4],” FiercePharma, Jan. 14, 2016.