Make pay-for-delay deals that block generic drugs illegal
Health care
Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
Why shareholder democracy is pivotal
Pay-for-delay settlements are private contracts between brand and generic drug companies. The firms could stop signing them, which makes corporate conduct close to sufficient for the goal. Shareholders have a live channel for this: ICCR-coordinated proposals in 2024 asked pharma boards to assess how patent-exclusivity strategies, including tactics that delay generics, harm patient access, citing AbbVie's 130-patent wall around Humira.
How this was scoredPivotal
Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
We have not yet written down the two answers behind this rating. Recording them on every item, so a reader can check the reasoning and not only the conclusion, is work in progress.
Every rating is the higher of two answers, one for what companies do and one for what they spend to stop the outcome, because the same vote reaches both. See the full method.
Sources
- On Healthcare Costs: In Battleground States and Districts, Republicans and Democrats Agree On Proposals to Lower Prices, Expand Coverage, Program for Public Consultation / Voice of the People, 2026 (national survey February 11-26, 2026)
- 2024 Shareholder Proposals at Pharma Companies Cite Strategies to Keep Drug Prices High as Potential Human Rights Risks, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, 2023-12-14
What civil society organizations are helping owners on this
Coordinated proposals at nine pharmaceutical companies in 2023 asking boards to consider the effect of extended patent exclusivity, which delays generic entry, on patient access.
Led the 2023 patent-exclusivity proposals at Amgen and Johnson & Johnson.
Led the 2023 patent-exclusivity proposals at Eli Lilly and Pfizer.
2 campaigns on record
Establish and report on a process by which the impact of extended patent exclusivities on product access would be considered in deciding whether to apply for secondary and tertiary patents.
Result: SEC denied Regeneron's no-action request, finding the proposal transcends ordinary business; the board urged a vote against; vote result not stated in source
Regeneron shareholders to vote on pharma patent proposal, Governance Intelligence, 2023-04
Establish and report on a process by which the impact of extended patent exclusivities on product access would be considered in deciding whether to apply for secondary and tertiary patents.
With Mercy Investment Services, Trinity Health, Northwest Coalition for Responsible Investment
Result: Amgen proposal withdrawn after agreement; Bristol Myers Squibb added three pages of disclosure; five companies sought SEC no-action relief without success; vote percentages not stated in source
Patents and politics among early US proxy season highlights, Governance Intelligence, 2023
Related subjects on other maps
How this rating was made
Every item on every one of our maps is read against one question: how far does this depend on the people who own companies voting their values? We answer it twice, once for what companies do and once for what they spend to stop the outcome, and take whichever answer is higher, since the same vote reaches both. The score carries its reasoning and its sources so that a reader can check it rather than take it.
- Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
- Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes, and others must also act.
- Helpful. Owners voting their values help, and others carry most of it.
- Independent. This moves without owners. Other levers carry it.
The advocacy record on this page holds only what a source we opened says happened. Where we searched and found nothing, the page says so rather than leaving a silence. Where a campaign names a filer the source does not name, it says that too. Ratings are ours; the list of subjects is Common Ground of the American People's, and we link to their original.
How we score dependency, in full.