The Biden Administration on Thursday announced it is setting new policy that will allow it to seize patents for medicines developed with government funding if it believes their prices are too high.

The policy creates a roadmap for the government's so-called march-in rights, which have never been used before. They would allow the government to grant additional licenses to third parties for products developed using federal funds if the original patent holder does not make them available to the public on reasonable terms.

Under the draft roadmap, seen by Reuters, the government will consider factors including whether only a narrow set of patients can afford the drug, and whether drugmakers are exploiting a health or safety issue by hiking prices.

"We'll make it clear that when drug companies won't sell taxpayer funded drugs at reasonable prices, we will be prepared to allow other companies to provide those drugs for less," White House adviser Lael Brainard said on a press call.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/9299333

New comic! 🎵 mariah carey sings in the background while I gently push you to the Loading Artist shop 🎵

My father has been an electrical engineer since the 60's. My inheritance goes deep.

cross-posted from: https://reddthat.com/post/9448862

NASA found a stray, space-grown tomato that went missing for 8 months, clearing the astronaut they all thought ate it

At the stroke of midnight, recreational marijuana became legal in Ohio.

Voters approved last month that adults 21 and older are allowed to use and grow cannabis.

However, Ohio Republicans may be putting the brakes on it.

On Monday, Ohio Senate Republicans proposed banning at-home growing, increasing the substance's tax rate, and altering how those taxes get distributed.

The ballot measure, dubbed Issue 2, passed on the Nov. 7 election with 57% of the vote - but since it is a citizen's vote, the legislature is allowed to make tweaks to the law.

The “Biggest Little City in the World” is earning a new distinction: one of the few cities in the West to get large numbers of homeless off its streets.

The city teamed with Sparks, a neighboring city, and surrounding Washoe County to build a Nevada Cares Campus in 2021 that could accommodate more than 600 people in a giant tent and satellite sleeping pods. Since that year, the number of homeless living on the street has plummeted to 329 this year from 780, according to annual point-in-time counts.

The 58% drop is striking when compared with many other Western cities which have seen their unsheltered homeless populations grow or stagnate since the pandemic, amid soaring drug addiction and a federal appeals-court order that prevents cities in the region from clearing streets without providing enough beds. California has spent about $20 billion over the last five years to combat the problem, yet still has half the nation’s unsheltered homeless. 

Once people are off the street and in the tent, the other part of Reno’s approach kicks in: helping them find a job, access other services and move them into permanent housing. Other cities are taking notice.

Raging wildfires in 2020 transformed Big Basin Redwoods State Park in Santa Cruz County from a towering forested cathedral into a standing boneyard with some of the oldest trees on the planet seemingly burned beyond survival.

But soon after the flames were gone, California’s coast redwoods began calling upon a remarkable energy storage system helping these trees survive even after fires burned away every life-sustaining green needle.

Scientists now have an idea about just how far back these reserves go. Researchers studying a stand of severely burned old growth Big Basin redwoods found the trees fed ancient buds that had been hiding underneath thick bark for more than 1,000 years using carbon transformed into sugars with sunlight that shone more than a half-century ago.

‘Nudify’ Apps That Use AI to ‘Undress’ Women in Photos Are Soaring in Popularity::It’s part of a worrying trend of non-consensual “deepfake” pornography being developed and distributed because of advances in artificial intelligence.

The suspect was identified as Mufid Al Khader, 28, officials A man arrested in connection with shots that were fired outside a synagogue in Albany, New York, on Thursday has been federally charged, officials said.

Mufid Fawaz Alkhader was arrested and charged with possession of a firearm by a prohibited person, FBI spokesperson Sarah Ruane told NBC News.

Alkhader is 28, according to two senior law enforcement officials briefed on the matter.

• https://loadingartist.com/
• !loadingartist@lemmy.world
• Patreon

cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/6969300