In the latest gambit to lower the cost of a pricey medicine, three advocacy groups are pushing the Biden administration to use federal laws to license patents on a cancer treatment to outside manufacturers in order to produce lower-cost versions.
In a letter to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the groups maintain the U.S. government has the right under two different federal laws to authorize “qualified companies” to make and sell generic versions of the Xtandi prostate cancer drug. And in this instance, they argue this could be done without having to pay royalties or encounter a court injunction that would block production.
The rationale for such a move is due to pricing. Xtandi, which is currently sold in the U.S. by Astellas and Pfizer, is priced three to six times higher than in other similar high-income countries. In 2022, the average Medicaid price was $130.66 per capsule and the Medicare Part D price was $131.30 per capsule. Last year, the list price was $136.50 per 40-milligram capsule.