Rfk Jr. Says He’s Open To Seizing Drug Patents

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. expressed openness to adopting a key progressive proposal for lowering drug prices during a closed-door meeting with Senate Finance Committee staffers, according to three people familiar with the exchange, who were granted anonymity to speak freely about private discussions.

President Donald Trump’s health secretary nominee last week indicated he’d consider authorizing the government to seize the patents of high-priced medicines from manufacturers and share them with other drug makers as a way to force down costs, said the three people.

The approach — long supported by progressive Democrats and only tentatively by former President Joe Biden — would use executive authorities to take certain drug patents developed using taxpayer money and license them to other manufacturers that might make and sell them for less. Advocates for the policy say it would allow new levels of competition for some of the most expensive prescription drugs, which are now protected by patents.

Kennedy's comments, which come before his confirmation hearings on the Hill this week, may deepen suspicions among conservatives already wary of his past as a Democrat. Kennedy has little health policymaking experience, and has already faced criticism from social conservatives, including former Vice President Mike Pence, for his past comments supporting abortion rights.

Embracing such ideas would represent a break from decades of Republican orthodoxy on health care that favors free-market principles and instead align him with liberal Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, who have championed the expansive use of federal authorities to control drug prices.

It is not known whether Kennedy endorsed the ideas, which rely on using the government's “march-in” rights and compulsory licensing authority, with Trump’s blessing or whether he was speaking for himself. The remarks came during a question-and-answer session with staffers.

Katie Miller, Kennedy's spokesperson, disputed the characterization of the back-and-forth.

"This is once again another example of POLITICO carrying Democrats' water. After POLITICO was told this did not occur the way Democrats have described it, they're still seeking to publish it in an attempt to denigrate Bobby Kennedy and create a story where there is not one," she said. "The fact remains, this did not occur. This is a smear campaign against Donald J. Trump."

The Biden White House endorsed the legality of march-in rights in 2023, amid pressure from Warren and Sanders to study the concept. But even then, it stopped well short of encouraging the use of that power, or recommending any drugs that should be targeted.

Republicans at the time blasted Biden over its conclusion.

"This kind of short-sighted decision would kill American health care innovation and deny millions of Americans future lifesaving cures and treatments," Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said in a statement calling the use of march-in rights illegal.

Cassidy, who chairs the Senate HELP Committee, is now one of the key votes on Kennedy's confirmation. A spokesperson for Cassidy declined to comment.

The episode also exposes the lack of an overall plan to lower drug pricing from the Trump administration.

During his first campaign in 2016, Trump promised to stand up to the drug makers and reduce prices. As president, he made some effort to contain the high cost of prescription drugs: some decisions, which paved the way for states to import lower-priced drugs from Canada, have been fully implemented and kept by the Biden administration, though they've not made a dent in drug prices. Others have languished or were blocked by the courts.

On the trail in 2023, Trump again made lowering drug costs a core policy issue. “On Day One of my new term, I will sign an executive order to end this global freeloading on American consumers for once and for all,” Trump boasted in a policy video posted on his campaign website, promising to bring back an executive order he signed in his first term to have Medicare pay the lowest price that other countries pay for drugs.

That never materialized after the campaign backed away from the proposal a month before the election, without explanation.

Instead, Trump last week repealed a Biden executive order on drug pricing without laying out what he plans to do to lower the high cost of prescription drugs, creating an opening that Democrats wasted no time pouncing on.

“President Trump used his first day in office to … bend the knee to Big Pharma,” Sen. Tammy Baldwin wrote on X while former Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused Trump of breaking a campaign promise when he “BLOCKED a program that cut Rx drug prices for seniors and working families.”

The Democratic attacks blew the impact of the reversal out of proportion — the executive order that Trump overturned did little more than ask the Department of Health and Human Services’ innovation hub to test new models to lower prices. But the vacuum left by Trump gave Democrats an opening on the popular issue of drug pricing that most Americans see as unreasonably high.