Senate Judiciary Committee Revisits Drug Pricing Reform Bills – Life Sciences, Biotechnology & Nanotechnology

The Senate Judiciary Committee is showing renewed Congressional
interest in oversight of the pharmaceutical industry, with five
bipartisan drug bills on the agenda for review and discussion on
February 9, 2023.

On February 9, 2023, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold an
executive business meeting to review various drug-related bills on
the agenda. The proposed bipartisan legislation comes in the wake
of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which was passed in August
2022 and included several sweeping provisions related to
prescription drug pricing and reform. Notably, the committee is
reassessing a package of bills largely focused on increasing
competition for brand drugs. The following bills are scheduled to
be discussed by the committee:

• S. 79, Interagency Patent Coordination and Improvement
  Act of 2023 (Durbin, Tillis, Grassley, Coons). This bill
  would create a task force between the U.S. Patent and Trademark
  Office and the Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”)
  reportedly to improve communication and coordination in
  implementing each agency’s patent activities by encouraging the
  agencies to collaborate and share information on developments in
  science and technology.




• S. 113, Prescription Pricing for the People Act of 2023
  (Grassley, Cantwell, Blumenthal, Blackburn, Tillis). This
  bill aims to increase transparency into pharmacy benefit manager
  (“PBM”) practices by directing the Federal Trade
  Commission (“FTC”) to issue a report addressing alleged
  anticompetitive PBM behaviors along with other trends,
  observations, or information on pharmaceutical pricing. As
  proposed, the FTC also would issue a supplemental report based on
  this review to highlight the agency’s recommendations for
  related policy or legislative recommendations.




• S. 142, Preserve Access to Affordable Generics and
  Biosimilars Act (Klobuchar, Grassley, Durbin, Blumenthal, Booker,
  Ossoff). This bill would limit what the bill identifies as
  an anticompetitive practice, whereby manufacturers allegedly use
  pay-off agreements to delay the introduction of cheaper
  substitutes, ultimately, in the view of the bill, resulting in
  higher prescription drug costs.




• S. 148, Stop STALLING Act (Klobuchar, Grassley, Durbin,
  Blumenthal, Cruz, Booker, Ossoff). This bill seeks to
  disincentivize branded pharmaceutical companies from filing what it
  claims is a “sham” petition with the FDA for the alleged
  intention of interfering with the regulatory approval process for
  generics and biosimilars that would compete with their own
  products. If passed, this bill also would provide additional
  enforcement authority to the FTC against companies who file such
  petitions.




• S. 150, Affordable Prescriptions for Patients Act of
  2023 (Cornyn, Blumenthal, Grassley, Durbin, Cruz,
  Klobuchar). This bill seeks to lower drug prices by
  foreclosing what the bill alleges are anticompetitive practices
  related to patents being deployed by manufacturers to block generic
  and biosimilar competition from coming to market.

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