Joseph Allen

In a misguided attempt to control drug costs, some Congressional leaders are urging the Biden administration to misapply a 40-year-old law that supports 6 million jobs, helped launch 15,000 start-up companies, and contributed $1.7 trillion to U.S economic output. The lawmakers — Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Representative Lloyd Doggett (D-Tex.) — want the Department of Health and Human Services, as well as the Department of Defense, to misuse the march-in provision of the Bayh-Dole Act to set the price of federally-funded medicines — something the provision does not authorize. Such an action would undermine the intention of Bayh-Dole, while inflicting devastating damage on the U.S.