Initiative for Medicines, Access & Knowledge

Understanding Americans’ Top Concerns on Drug Pricing: Corporate Greed and Patent Reform I-MAK commissioned a survey of 726 American adults to assess public attitudes toward prescription drug pricing and potential reforms. Conducted by Franklin & Marshall College’s Center for Opinion Rese...

A national survey we commissioned last year found that 90% of Americans support making it easier for generic drugs to reach the market and 80% support changing patent laws to address drug pricing.

reports.i-mak.org/drug-pricing...

Some of these concerns can be abated if legislators take on the drug pricing crisis by reforming the patent system.

The cost of health care, not food or rent, is now Americans’ top worry As politicians prepare their pitches for the midterm elections, a survey finds that about 1 in 3 Americans are “very worried” about health care costs.

According to a new poll by KFF, Americans are more worried about being able to afford health care than they are about utilities, food and groceries, housing, or gas. Health care costs will affect how they vote in the midterms.
www.washingtonpost.com/health/2026/...

Legislators must defend Medicare’s Drug Price Negotiation Program without handing the pharmaceutical industry even more power to price gouge seniors and the private market. Failure to do so will only embolden the industry to continue attacking the program.

With the EPIC Act, he is attempting to weaken the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program by delaying price negotiation for small-molecule drugs from 9 to 13 years — another epic giveaway to the pharmaceutical industry.

🔗 www.arnoldventures.org/stories/pres...

Tillis is a top recipient of pharma campaign donations and has pushed several industry-backed bills over the years, including the PREVAIL Act and PERA.

🔗 prospect.org/2024/03/29/2...

Following President Trump's 2025 Executive Order, which asks Congress to extend the Medicare negotiation timeline for small molecule drugs i.e. pills and tablets, Senator Thom Tillis introduced the deceptively titled “EPIC Act”.

🔗 www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

CMS is still deciding whether these modified versions will be open to Medicare negotiations next year or be protected for another 13 years. The pharmaceutical industry will be lobbying hard for the latter outcome.

🔗 www.cnbc.com/2025/05/14/h...
🔗 www.cms.gov/files/docume...

Merck and Bristol Myers Squibb, the companies marketing these drugs, will now use this extra time to shift patients to slightly different versions of the drugs using a patenting scheme known as a product hop.

🔗 www.i-mak.org/2025/05/05/m...

Last year, amid record-breaking lobbying, the pharmaceutical industry inserted a loophole in the Trump administration's “Big Beautiful Bill” that allowed blockbuster drugs Keytruda and Opdivo to escape the third round of Medicare negotiations.

15 new drugs added to Medicare price negotiations The Trump administration released the next 15 drugs subject to Medicare price negotiation, including for the first time treatments administered in doctor offices.

Medicare's Drug Price Negotiation Program recently announced the 15 drugs selected for its third round of negotiations. As the program expands, its success is in danger of being undercut by legislators giving drug companies new ways to extend their monopolies. 🧵
www.statnews.com/2026/01/27/m...

Pharma Monopoly: The Battle for the Future of Medicines|Hardcover It is no secret that billions of people across the world lack the freedom and right to access life-saving medicines. For decades, people have fought to put this right, though, as the Covid-19 pandemic...

Pharma Monopoly: The Battle for the Future of Medicines will be published on March 27 in the UK and May 26 in the U.S.
www.barnesandnoble.com/w/pharma-mon...

Ultimately, Pharma Monopoly: The Battle for the Future of Medicines examines the foundations of international efforts to improve access to medicines and calls for a new way forward that can rekindle a movement for justice.

From their unique vantage points and experiences, Tahir and Rohit explain how the influence of neoliberal thinking has narrowed the vision for systemic change while entrenching the status quo.

Tahir and Rohit’s new book traces how, move by move, governments have ceded control of global public health to pharmaceutical companies, making it increasingly hard to undo the damage wreaked along the way.

Yet despite many important wins much of the world is still dependent on systems that deny their access by design.

It is no secret that billions of people across the world lack the freedom and right to access life-saving medicines. For decades, people have fought to change this.

NEWS: @tahiramin.bsky.social and Rohit Malpani are releasing a new book! 📚

In it, they examine the origins of a global public health system that protects pharmaceutical monopolies instead of the public interest and people’s lives.

This is called product hopping.

The Heavy Price of GLP-1 Drugs: How Financialization Drives Pharmaceutical Patent Abuse and Health Inequities for GLP-1 Therapies This brief examines the financialized business model of Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly for the leading GLP-1 products Ozempic, Rybelsus, and Wegovy (semaglutide) and Mounjaro and Zepbound (tirzepatide). I...

Read our report examining the financialized business model of Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk. www.i-mak.org/glp-1/

Policymakers must pay attention to Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk’s schemes, and deepen their understanding of how these companies are exploiting the patent system to monopolize the GLP-1 market.

Given the enormous size of the GLP-1 market and the potential for unprecedented profits and shareholder returns, both companies are heavily incentivized to exploit any regulatory weakness at the expense of patients and the American public.

Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk’s GLP-1 products are projected to generate a staggering $470 billion by 2030, exceeding what other high-profile drugs like Viagra and Prozac made when they first launched.

To date, Novo Nordisk has filed 320 patent applications on its semaglutide products while Eli Lilly has filed 53 on its tirzepatide products.

Drugmakers Fight Multifront Legal Battles Over GLP-1s - Law360 In the wake of U.S. Food and Drug Administration approvals for GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, surging public demand and massive profits have inspired a broad range of drugmaker litigation against competitor...

We will be closely watching how Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk adapt their patenting schemes to maintain monopoly control and delay affordable options for the GLP-1 market.
www.law360.com/classaction/...

Thank you, David Mitchell. Your work will be carried forward. ❤️

Through his organization, David gave thousands of Americans the courage to share their stories and challenge a pharmaceutical system that tolerates preventable suffering and death in the name of profit.

David was a fearless leader and the heart of a historic movement that helped secure Medicare’s ability to negotiate drug prices.

We mourn the loss of David Mitchell, founder of Patients For Affordable Drugs (@p4ad.bsky.social).

David showed the world that even when systems feel too big and entrenched to challenge, they are not beyond our collective power.

How the USPTO was Hollowed Out in 2025 Despite some hard-fought victories in the fight for patent reform, our year-in-review newsletter must focus on something deeply troubling.

In 2025, we won some hard-fought victories in the fight for patent reform. Yet despite this progress, our year-in-review newsletter must focus on something deeply troubling: the hollowing out of the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
mailchi.mp/i-mak/how-th...