According to STAT News, a new report from a federal watchdog agency, the Government Accountability Office, found the National Institutes of Health does not consider whether a medicine it discovered and licensed to a pharmaceutical company may later be affordable, and also fails to provide enough information about its licensing activities to assess patient access. The GAO has recommended that NIH do a better job of disclosing licensing data and pay more attention to the potential for anti-competitive practices that affect drug pricing.

Of the findings, Professor Jake Sherkow said, "I wish the report was more forceful about its recommendations concerning data transparency, but even this little bit is better than nothing. In data, like life, we shouldn’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”

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