WASHINGTON — Patients Rising Now Executive Director MacKay Jimeson today released the following statement regarding the White House announcement of a blueprint to March In on medical treatment patents:

“The one aspect of America’s healthcare system that works well is our ingenuity. The rapid advances in science, medicine and technology that we are seeing in the 21st Century are a direct result of our strong protections for intellectual property, such as patent protections for prescription medicines. Patents were designed to incentivize advances in the arts and sciences, laid out by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution. They lay the foundation of hope for patients needing better treatments that improve acute and chronic symptoms, slow disease progression and cure diseases.

Americans should have affordable access to medicines. When it comes to prescription drugs, The White House is missing the mark on lowering drug prices for Americans by ignoring the market failure of the insurance industry. Most access and affordability challenges are rooted in healthcare reimbursement through health insurance coverage and benefit designs. Through predatory formulary practices and perverse financial incentives that allow for profiteering from medical inflation, health insurers and their pharmacy benefit businesses are allowed to operate in secret and invent tactics designed expressly to make money off of the sickest and most vulnerable patients.

Make no mistake, patents have nothing to do with drug pricing. The half-hearted proposal is an attack on business, a slippery slope for other industries, and erodes future treatment development that directly hurts sick Americans they are trying to help.”