Can an Obscure, 100-Year-Old Patent Law Take On Big Pharma?

• Drug price advocates suggest government skirt patent protections for greater good • Law, called Section 1498, would create legal and political hurdles • Unclear whether Health and Human Services Department would ever use it

Proposed solutions for lowering drug prices typically hinge on sweeping transformations within the drug-supply chain, but what if there’s a more immediate solution?

There is, according to Sidney Wolfe, founder of Public Citizen’s health research group.

The federal government should use a century-old patent law, usually referred to as Section 1498, to overlook branded drug patents and mass-manufacture generic drugs for the greater good, Wolfe ...