Dive Brief:
- Kyle Bass, who founded Hayman Capital Management in Dallas, predicted the subprime mortgage crisis and gained fame, fortune, and respect. Now, he is taking on pharma firms with "questionable" patents.
- Bass is using the Inter Partes Reviw (IPR), created by the America Invents Act of 2012, in order to challenge those patents that he and his team deem "questionable," Reuters reports.
- According to Bass, the goal of using the IPR process and challenging patents is to bring a sense of greater fairness to the market. Ultimately, he estimates that the market capitalization for drugs with questionable patents is $450 billion.
Dive Insight:
Usually, pharma patent disputes are inter-company stand-offs that play out in various legal venues. But the IPR allows for a more all-encompassing approach, making it possible for someone like Bass and his hedge fund team to take on numerous companies and patents.
Bass says his goal is to bring more balance and efficiency to the market for prescription drugs, which will ultimately lead to lower prices. Though Bass does not call out any specific companies, he points to practices such as changing dosage or packaging and using those minor changes to extend patent lifecycle as the types of behavior that he aims to call out.