Those new negotiated prices for ten popular drugs? Their patents are about to expire, and cheaper generics will replace them, regardless..

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PowerLine

Posted on August 18, 2024 by Scott Johnson in 2024 Election, Biden Administration, Kamala Harris, Medicare

Big Fakers versus Big Pharma

John A. Clifford is of counsel at Merchant and Gould in Phoenix. He is a member of the Arizona and U.S. Patent Bars. I got to know and respect Jack on the other side of a case premised on the law of intellectual property.
Jack writes to comment on the claim made by Vice President Harris last week that the Biden/Harris administration is “lowering prescription drug costs.” Jack wants it to be noted: “I write as an individual and not on behalf of my employer or any client of that law firm. This is not a legal opinion. I simply asked AI to review the published literature available and tell me when the U.S. patents on these drugs expire. Such information is usually in the annual reports of drug makers and other reliable places. Before making any business decision on this topic, one should review the source documents themselves and not rely on AI or my comment alone.” I thought readers might find his comment (below the break) of interest.

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Both President Biden and Vice President Harris spoke at Prince George’s Community College in Largo, Maryland this past Thursday. In their speeches (White House transcript here) they touted the administration’s negotiation of dramatic price reductions on ten pharmaceutical drugs, allegedly saving consumers and Medicare billions of dollars. But as Biden himself noted, the price reductions do not take effect until January 1, 2026. As a patent attorney with some understanding of how things work, I wondered what was going on. Why wait to save billions of dollars?

The agreement covers ten drugs, all of which are covered by one or more U.S. patents. Patents give the owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using or selling an infringing product for a limited time, normally something like 20 years, although with pharmaceuticals the period of exclusivity can be longer for various reasons.

In looking into this claimed Biden/Harris achievement I learned that eight of the ten drugs are covered by patents that expire in 2026 or before. Only one of the ten, Imbruvica, has a patent with many years left to run, and the price reduction negotiated for that drug is the lowest percentage price drop of the group.

Once a drug patent expires generic drug makers are free to enter the market with a generic equivalent, usually at a much lower price. The U.S. government has the details of the drug price reductions contained in the Inflation Reduction Act signed in August of 2022 here: Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program: Negotiated Prices for Initial Price Applicability Year 2026. Included there is this handy chart:

I propose adding another column showing when the U.S. patents on those drugs expire. It looks like this:

Januvia 2026
Novolog 2024
Farxiga 2025
Enbrel 2010-2029 (this one is complicated)
Jardiance 2025
Stelara 2023 (although a pay-to-delay agreement pushes competition off until 2025)
Xarelto 2024
Eliquis 2026
Entresto 2025
Imbruvica 2036

It is well known that generic drug manufacturers often enter the market with equivalent compounds after patents expire once they receive the required FDA approval for their versions. That usually leads to meaningful price reductions for consumers and Medicare through competition. History shows those price reductions normally are in the range of 34 percent to 68 percent in the U.S. The data can be found here, again published by the government.

The fact that the federal government can now negotiate directly with drug makers for lower prices may be significant, but for these ten drugs it is likely similar price reductions would have followed anyway once the relevant patents expired. The effectiveness of the administration on LOWERING PRESCRIPTION DRUG COSTS as claimed in the placards surrounding her at Thursday’s rally must be less than advertised. It’s like claiming an extension of the law of gravity, but not effective until January 1, 2026.

Your body, her choice

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Uninjected? You Need Not Apply to Harris Campaign

The Harris campaign has a job listing for a “National Booker,” tasked with working “with the Surrogates Communications Director and Deputy Communications Director to execute Harris for President’s strategy for deploying surrogates and allies across national and regional media outlets.”…

In the fine print at the bottom of the listing, the campaign makes it clear that it also expects the would-be employee to be completely caught up on his or her coronavirus vaccinations.

The requirement reads:

Harris for President requires all employees to be “up to date” on COVID-19 vaccination status as prescribed by the CDC as a condition of employment, unless otherwise prohibited by applicable law. If you seek a reasonable accommodation in relation to the campaign’s COVID-19 policy, you should speak to the HR Department prior to reporting to an office location.

The job listing can be found here.

In the Demmerkrat world, virtue signaling trumps science, every time.

The “vaccine” neither prevents infection nor stops it from being passed on, so there is no possible benefit to an organization requiring its staffer to subject themselves to injection, except as a loyalty test; an updated SS armpit tattoo, in fact.

Pending

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21 Kenilworth Terrace, $6.995 million, pending after 95 days. Built as a summer house in 1893, previous owners tried for $3.995 million in 2015 before finally selling it to these owners for $2.4 million in 2020. They’ve obviously put a lot of money into restoring it, and they’re about to be repaid for their efforts.

The place still lacks a garage, but one can’t really expect that luxury in moderate-income housing.

Kampallanomics: food inflation is even worse than her handlers admit. Ooooh, those greedy capitalists!

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The actual rise in food costs since February, 2021 is 44%

Even the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post could not stomach the new proposal from Kamala Harris to place price controls on food. The headline of the opinion piece from Catherine Rampell read:

“When your opponent calls you a ‘communist,’ maybe don’t try price controls?”

Food prices are indeed out of control, and in fact far worse than the official CPI statistics convey. Those numbers admit that grocery prices have risen +20% since Harris became vice president.

But Harris’ own Department of Agriculture provides a much worse – and more accurate – take on grocery inflation since she and Biden took office. The USDA “thrifty plan” that represents a frugal basket of food for a family of four has skyrocketed from $675 per month in January of 2021 to $975 per month now. That $300 increase represents a stunning 44% increase ….

The USDA report is pretty interesting and yes, it does show a 44% increase since the deadly duo were placed on the throne.

It wouldn't matter that the AP is a worthless cesspool of propaganda except that its feed constitutes the bulk of "news reporting" in the country (UPDATED)

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2018: Then-Senator airhead vows to fight deportation of illegALS

She was the Border Czar, she wasn’t the Border Czar, now “she was the Border Czar, but in a joyful subtle way”.

The AP is the enemy of the people, by the way

In grappling with migration, Harris proceeded cautiously. She focused her time and prestige on boosting private investment in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, the so-called Northern Triangle; her goal was to help create jobs to bolster economies and dissuade migrants from making the perilous journey to the United States.

It was a decidedly long-term — and limited — approach to a humanitarian crisis, and it has allowed Republicans to tie her to the broader fight over the border. While migration from the Northern Triangle ebbed, it surged from other nations, sparking an emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border, one that Republicans have aggressively sought to exploit at Harris' expense.

Harris Rigby, Not the Bee: “The best part of this story, which gives Kamala all the credit for her brave and genius border plan, is that they admit about 20 paragraphs in, at the very bottom of the story, that any "success" from Kamala's plan is actually because El Salvador elected Nayib Bukele.”

While the Harris campaign and White House have pointed to statistics that show migration from Northern Triangle countries has dropped substantially since early 2021, there is debate over what is responsible for that drop ...

Independent analysts, however, said they were skeptical that Harris' approach was responsible for the dip. They said the decrease was likely driven by regional factors, including the ascension of El Salvador's new president and his aggressive drive to combat violent crime. His government reported a 70% drop in homicides in 2023.

UPDATE: of course, there’s also the AP’s bookend, an essential item on every liberal’s bookshelf, NPR

Trump team scores a truly dastardly campaign triumph, convinces the Democrats to go full-Kamala

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In addition to the mobile clinic, another group, Americans for Contraception, plans to erect an 18-foot-tall inflatable intrauterine device, or IUD, named “Freeda Womb,” The Times reported.

Other activists are planning a “Hotties for Harris” party, in addition to a number of other events.

Even Texas Governor Greg Abbott is helping out, chartering buses in selected blue states and offering free rides to the Windy City.

Dem lawmakers given security warning before 100,000 pro-Hamas demonstrators descend on Chicago for DNC

UPDATE: I try to come up with satirical headlines, but, like the editors of The Bee, I can’t go far enough out to keep up with the actual news: Governor Abbott is actually busing up 1,000 or so illegal aliens to join the DNC festival.

With no further need to prop up him up, the once-respected (by some) NY Times "discovers" that the First Son is a crook. Next year: Biden sold his office.

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Mr. Biden's highly questionable foreign dealings have for years appeared more smoke than fire; there was previously no evidence that he illicitly lobbied any American officials. Compared to figures such as the former Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort, who was caught out as an illegal foreign lobbyist (among plenty of other crimes), Mr. Biden's alleged foreign lobbying misdeeds appeared to fall short of crossing the line into criminality. They may have put a lie to President Biden's claimed concerns about foreign influence campaigns, but they were never worthy of formal charges. With the new details, though, that has changed, giving prosecutors the opening to pursue the president's son as one of the most prominent foreign lobbyists the United States has ever seen.

Here’s a sampling of articles from “Not the Bee” — sister publication to the Babylon Bee, but withe straight news stories. Every one of these reports was ignored by the MSN, or declared fales; all have been borne out as true.

Apple to white males, Asians: drop dead

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“Reader Up North” has sent along this post from Apple:

(There seem to be some pretty butch, even bearded trannies there at cupertino, no?)

Apple Entrepreneur Camp supports underrepresented founders and developers, and encourages the pipeline and longevity of these entrepreneurs in technology. Attendees benefit from one-on-one code-level guidance, receive unprecedented access to Apple engineers and experts, and become part of the extended global network of Apple Entrepreneur Camp alumni.

Applications are now open for female,* Black, Hispanic/Latinx, and Indigenous founders and developers. And this year we’re thrilled to bring back our in-person programming at Apple in Cupertino. For those who can’t attend in person, we’re still offering our full program online. We welcome established entrepreneurs with app-driven businesses to learn more about eligibility requirements and apply today.

Apply by September 3, 2024.

Learn more

* Apple believes that gender expression is a fundamental right. We welcome all women to apply to this program.

Related: I was going to volunteer, but I worried that someone at her headquarters would want to touch my Hu/hu

Kampallawalla Ding Dong’s volunteer application form: