Summary
The COVID-19 pandemic has shown the world what decades of patent protection has made possible in the biopharmaceutical sector of the U.S. innovation economy. Nonetheless, price controls now threaten to stifle this innovation. If the government twists its own laws and arbitrarily imposes price controls on patented vaccines and drugs created by pharmaceutical innovators, innovation will not occur. Statist price controls kill innovation, destroy markets, and stymie or degrade economic development. We should prevent politicians and activists from exploiting the COVID-19 crisis to undermine both patents and biopharmaceutical advancement—harming people today and preventing an effective response to the next pandemic.
Read the full report in Heritage Foundation