Real Clear Health: Our National Security Depends on Intellectual Property by Walter G. Cowan
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has just rejected a petition that asked the federal government to misuse a decades-old law. This petition sought the government to impose de facto price controls on a widely available medicine.
This rejection is welcome news. The law in question, the Bayh-Dole Act, was passed in 1980 to incentivize the commercial development of discoveries arising from federally funded research for the benefit of the public and the economy. Abusing this law would have negative ripple effects throughout all U.S. industries, threatening America’s global economic competitiveness and ultimately our national security.