Anyone who imagines that running a federal agency would be fun should consider the plight of HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell and NIH Director Francis Collins. How would you like to have prominent Members of Congress, “public interest” groups, and the media claiming that you have the power to lower drug costs to help desperately needy people, but you refuse to use it?
Secretary Burwell and Director Collins are facing formidable pressure to reinterpret the Bayh-Dole Act for the compulsory licensing of costly drugs arising from federally supported research. They may get some comfort knowing such actions aren’t sanctioned by the law, or that caving in would devastate the U.S. drug development system. The stakes in their decision whether or not to “march-in” to control the price of Xtandi, a prostate cancer drug, are enormous.
