Senator turns up heat on inhaler manufacturers to remove improperly listed Orange Book patents

Sen. Tam­my Bald­win (D-WI) is the lat­est law­mak­er to call on in­haler man­u­fac­tur­ers to re­move what the FTC has deemed im­prop­er­ly list­ed patents from the Or­ange Book as pol­i­cy­mak­ers con­tin­ue to pres­sure phar­ma com­pa­nies for mis­us­ing the patent sys­tem to fend off com­pe­ti­tion.

In let­ters to As­traZeneca, Boehringer In­gel­heim, GSK and Te­va on Tues­day, Bald­win urged the com­pa­nies to re­move patents that the FTC iden­ti­fied in No­vem­ber as be­ing im­prop­er­ly list­ed and staving off gener­ic and biosim­i­lar com­pe­ti­tion. The let­ter echoes the com­plaints of Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MI), who sent let­ters to six in­haler man­u­fac­tur­ers, in­clud­ing the four tar­get­ed by Bald­win, ear­li­er this month ask­ing them to com­ply with the FTC’s re­quest.

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