Do March‐in Rights Ensure Access to Medical Products Arising From Federally Funded Research? A Qualitative Study

Since the Bayh-Dole Act’s enactment in 1980, the NIH has received only 5 march-in rights petitions for 4 federally-funded health products and rejected all of them, with qualitative analysis of expert interviews revealing little prospect that the agency will invoke march-in rights to address high drug prices or ensure public access. Although march-in rights may encourage government licensees to commercialize research results and extract minor concessions from licensees, the current statutory language makes these rights unlikely to serve as an effective policy tool for lowering prices of medical products derived from federal funding.