Hearing on Biotech Medicine Prices: Waxman's Opening

The Hatch-Waxman Act (1984), allows for the availability of safe, reliable generic drugs in place of their expensive name-brand counterparts. Drugs created from biological organisms rather than from chemical synthesis, "biologicals", however, are under no such regulation, forcing consumers to pay whatever price is set by the companies, who are free from competition. This is the opening of a hearing on the problem of biotech's monopoly over biological drugs.