NIH official accused of ‘bias’ against using a controversial law to address high drug prices

The campaign to use so-called march-in rights to widen access to a cancer drug is getting personal.

Universities Allied for Essential Medicines, one of several advocacy groups backing the use of a controversial U.S. law to counter high drug prices, is arguing that an official at the National Institutes of Health should be recused from any decision-making role in responding to a petition to sidestep patents for the Xtandi prostate cancer drug.

Under a federal law known as the Bayh-Dole Act, a government agency that funds private research can require a company to license its patent to another party in order to “alleviate health and safety needs which are not being reasonably satisfied.” An agency can also do so when the benefits of a product, such as a medicine, are not available on “reasonable terms.”

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