Undermining private IP causes private sector opt-out of research
Stephen Ezell 19, vice president for global innovation policy at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) and director of ITIF’s Center for Life Sciences Innovation. He also leads the Global Trade and Innovation Policy Alliance. His areas of expertise include science and technology policy, international competitiveness, trade, and manufacturing. (“The Bayh-Dole Act’s Vital Importance to the U.S. Life-Sciences Innovation System,” ITIF, https://itif.org/publications/2019/03/04/bayh-dole-acts-vital-importance-us-life-sciences-innovation-system/)//BB
Weakening the certainty of access to IP rights provided under Bayh-Dole by employing march-in to address drug pricing issues—especially if it meant a government entity could walk in and retroactively commandeer innovations private-sector enterprises invested hundreds of millions, if not billions, to create—would significantly diminish private businesses’ incentives to commercialize products supported by federally funded research.245 As David Bloch notes, “The reluctance of such [biopharmaceutical] companies to do business with the government is almost invariably tied up in concerns over the government’s right to appropriate private sector intellectual property.”246 As he continues, “Each march-in petition potentially puts at risk the staggeringly massive investment that branded pharmaceutical companies make in developing new drug therapies.”247 Put simply, using march-in rights to control drug prices could seriously compromise medical discovery and innovation.