For young adults living with chronic illnesses, the high cost of prescription medications is a persistent barrier to affording life-saving treatments. The current drug patent system allows pharmaceutical companies to extend monopolies on critical medications, keeping prices artificially high and leaving young adult patients struggling to afford the care they need.
Generation Patient is committed to advocating for patent reform that prioritizes patients over profits. We believe the patent system must be restructured to prevent abuse and ensure timely access to our affordable, life-saving medications.
Our Priority Areas in Patent Reform:
Pay-for-Delay Agreements
These anti-competitive practices involve brand-name drug companies paying generic manufacturers to delay bringing lower-cost alternatives to market. We support legislation like the Preserve Access to Affordable Generics and Biosimilars Act, which would make these agreements presumptively illegal and subject to antitrust scrutiny.
Sneha Dave speaking on a panel discussion on breaking down big pharma patent walls.
Patent Thickets
Brand-name drug makers create dense webs of overlapping patents to block generic competition. We support reforms such as the Affordable Prescriptions for Patients Act, which aims to limit the number of patents a drug maker can assert against competitors and expedite the arrival of affordable generic and biosimilar drugs.
Product Hopping
This strategy involves pharmaceutical companies switching the market to slightly modified versions of drugs with later-expiring patents. We recommend policies such as the Stop STALLING Act, which would empower the Federal Trade Commission to challenge product hopping as an unfair method of competition.
USPTO-FDA Collaboration
We advocate for increased coordination between the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to improve patent quality and prevent abuse. Specifically, we support policies like the Interagency Patent Coordination and Improvement Act, which aims to reduce the granting of patents on obvious or non-novel drug formulations.
Increasing Public Engagement in the Patent System
We work to amplify young adult patients' voices in patent policy discussions. This includes engaging with agencies such as the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Federal Trade Commission.
We also are working to ensure legislation that is harmful to young adult patients does not advance, such as:
PREVAIL (Protecting and Restoring Enduring Validity to Advance Innovation and Limit Excessive): The PREVAIL Act aims to limit the power of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and make it harder for the public to challenge bad patents.
Patent Eligibility Restoration Act (PERA): PERA would expand patent-eligible subject matter to include abstract ideas, laws of nature, and natural phenomena, allowing companies to monopolize research building blocks and drive up testing costs and medication prices.
- Patent Reform Primer
- Letter in support of S. 2780, the Medication Affordability and Patent Integrity Act
- Generation Patient Comment to the U.S. Patent Trade Office: Terminal Disclaimer Practice To Obviate Nonstatutory Double Patenting Proposed Rule
- Generation Patient Comment on PTAB Rule
- Generation Patient Comment for the Record Submitted to Senate Committee Hearing
Our Goals for Patent Reform:
Ending the abuse of the patent system through policy reform and regulatory change
Increasing transparency in the patent system
Empowering young adult patients to be at the center of patent reform discussions
Young adults are disproportionately affected by these systemic issues and must be at the forefront of the conversation. We are working to ensure their lived experiences inform efforts to create a fairer and more patient-centered patent system.
- The Connection Between Patents and High Drug Prices - A Q&A in POLITICO featuring our executive director Sneha Dave along with other experts who shared their perspectives on the connection between pharmaceutical patents and high drug costs—and, more importantly, what can be done about it through patent reform.