Article: The Newest Big Pharma Scam Exposed

From Hartmann Report

Big Pharma's obscenely-priced drugs developed w/tax dollars will continue to drain working people of income, savings, and -- ultimately -- their health until America recognizes healthcare as a right.

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Molnupiravir is the new pill that's been all over the news recently because it can cut hospitalizations and deaths of unvaccinated COVID-infected people by as much as half and doesn't require folks to go to the hospital or an infusion center, like the monoclonal antibody remdesivir. Just take a pill every day for five days and you're good.

It was originally developed by Emory University to treat horses infected with Venezuelan equine encephalitis with a $10 million grant from the Department of Defense and $19 million from the National Institutes of Health. In other words, its invention was paid for with your tax dollars.

Emory University passed along the patent on molnupiravir to a small company, Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, which in turn passed it along to the pharmaceutical giant Merck.

Manufacturing cost for molnupiravir, according to a report from researchers with the Harvard School of Public Health, is around $17.74 for a 5-day course of treatment.

Merck just signed a contract with the federal government to sell 1.7 million treatment courses for the government to distribute to infected people for " wait for it " $712.00 each.

This price-gouging hustle was both made possible and, ironically, perhaps made illegal by a piece of legislation passed back in 1980 that gave universities the ability to sell patents to inventions funded with federal money to non-profit organizations and small businesses"but not to major corporations. Since then, small businesses like Ridgeback have served as middlemen handing off profitable pharmaceuticals developed with our tax dollars to giant corporations like Merck.

Back in 1980, Senators Birch Bayh and Bob Dole got passed, over then-President Jimmy Carter's objections (it was first shot down and only passed during the lame duck session by being attached to must-pass legislation) the Patent and Trademark Law Amendments Act, now usually referred to as Bayh-Dole. Industry and trade groups loudly sing its praises, although they're worried about a provision of the law (that's apparently never been used) called "March-in Authority."

"March-in" allows the federal government to say, essentially, "We paid to develop this drug so you have to sell it to us at a reasonable price; we think you're ripping us off right now so we're going to claw back that patent from you and assign it to somebody else."

As professors Peter Arno and Michael Davis wrote in The Washington Post:

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