Letter sent to Congressional leaders Imploring Prompt Legislative Action
WASHINGTON (September 10, 2024) — The Association for Accessible Medicines and its Biosimilars Council today hosted a policy briefing: What’s Truly Preventing Low-Cost Medicines from Getting to Patients: A Look at the Broken Patent System, for Congressional staff regarding ways to expedite patient access to lower-cost generic and biosimilar medicines. The panel of subject matter experts discussed patent policies—including patent thickets, patent settlements and “skinny labeling”—and the potential impacts of proposed reforms on patient costs.
Strong and timely biosimilar and generic competition has been the most successful method for lowering drug prices in America,
David Gaugh, Interim President and CEO of AAM. Even though generics and biosimilars offer meaningfully lower prices, these cost savings are too often thwarted by brand patent thickets.
The panel included Karin Hessler, General Counsel, Association for Accessible Medicines; William M. Jay, Partner, Goodwin Procter LLP; Kurt Karst, Director, Hyman, Phelps & McNamara, P.C.; Neema Kumar, Vice President, Intellectual Property, North America, Sandoz; and Kevin Zive, Vice President, General Counsel and Head of Global Intellectual Property, Apotex Inc.
Also, AAM, ERIC ( The ERISA Industry Committee), and Transparency-Rx sent a letter to Congress calling for passage of legislation to prevent “patent thickets” and reform harmful practices utilized by pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) that undermine generic and biosimilar adoption.
Last week, AAM and its Biosimilars Council released the 2024 U.S. Generic & Biosimilar Medicines Savings Report, showing savings for the healthcare system and increased patient access to care from biosimilar medicine. Savings for America’s patients and the U.S. healthcare system through use of generic and biosimilar medicines reached $445 billion in 2023.
For media inquiries, contact the Communications department at media@accessiblemeds.org.
About AAM
The Association for Accessible Medicines, your generics and biosimilars industry, is driven by the belief that access to safe, quality, effective medicine has a tremendous impact on a person’s life and the world around them. Generic and biosimilar medicines improve people’s lives, improving society and the economy in turn. AAM represents the manufacturers of finished generic pharmaceuticals and biosimilars, manufacturers of bulk pharmaceutical chemicals, and suppliers of other goods and services to the generic industry. Generic pharmaceuticals are 90 percent of prescriptions dispensed in the U.S. but only 13.1 percent of total drug spending.
About the Biosimilars Council
The Biosimilars Council, a division of the Association for Accessible Medicines (AAM), works to ensure a positive environment for patient access to biosimilar medicines. The Biosimilars Council is a leading source for information about the safety and efficacy of more affordable alternatives to costly brand biologic medicines. Areas of focus include public and health expert education, strategic partnerships, government affairs, legal affairs and regulatory policy. More information is available at www.biosimilarscouncil.org.