2016: Chimeron Bio: KEI comments on NIH proposal for exclusive license for patents on cancer treatments

(More on government funded inventions here. Other KEI comments on NIH licenses are found here.) On May 18th, 2016 the NIH posted a notice on the Federal Register stating it is contemplating the grant of an exclusive license to Chimeron… Continue Reading

Biolyse Pharma offers to supply enzalutamide (Xtandi) for $3 per pill to Medicare and developing countries

On April 22, 2016, the President of Biolyse Pharma — a Canadian pharmaceutical company that specializes in the manufacture of oncology drugs — offered to supply the prostate cancer drug enzalutamide (Xtandi) to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) for $3 per pill ($12 per day; $4,383 per year). The Biolyse price for enzalutamide is 4-percent of the 2014 Medicare price, $69.41 ($277.64 per day; $101,408.01 per year), and lower than any other price in the world.

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Xtandi 2016 March-In Request

Today Knowledge Ecology International and the Union for Affordable Cancer Treatment (UACT) 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.

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