On Thursday, April 27th, the “Creating and Restoring Equal Access to Equivalent Samples (CREATES) Act was reintroduced by members of the Senate & House Judiciary Committees. The CREATES Act is a bipartisan bill intended to “combat anticompetitive practices used by some brand-name pharmaceutical and biologic companies to block entry of lower-cost generic drugs.”
The bill was initially introduced in June 2016 by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and was reintroduced in the Senate and House of Representatives last week. The revived version of the bill focuses on sample sharing as well as shared safety protocols.
If signed into law, the CREATES Act would allow generic manufactures to bring an action in federal court to obtain the samples that are needed in generic drug development. Additionally, the bill would also authorize judges to award damages to the generic companies to avoid any delays from occurring in the future.
The bill is sponsored by Senator Patrick Leahy (D – VT), and co-sponsored by Senators Chuck Grassley (R – IA), Dianne Feinstein (D – CA), Amy Klobuchar (D – MN), and Mike Lee (R – UT). In addition, Representatives Tom Marino (R – PA) and David Cicilline (D – RI) are also co-sponsoring an identical bill, which was introduced in the House on the same day.
If passed, the CREATES Act would produce a lot of opportunities for generic drug manufacturers. It will be very interesting to see what the future holds for the bill.