KCII News spoke with Senator Grassley about the prescription drug bills that are currently in committee in the Senate. The bills are to boost competition in the pharmaceutical industry and improve access to more affordable prescription drugs. Grassley discussed the proposed legislation, “Well, first of all, let me say every one of them is bipartisan, and five of them got out of judiciary committee last week. And you know when drugs are most expensive, when they’re protected by patent, ok after twelve years, in some cases it might be seventeen years, the patent runs out. And then at that point biosimilars or other generics ought to come on the market, to take the place if people want to buy generic, at a cheaper price then maybe they were paying for the patent drug. So what does the patent company do? It pays the biosimilar or the generic drug companies, well just don’t offer your drug yet for maybe two, three, four, five years, and we’ll pay you for not doing that so that we can keep the monopoly that the patent drug has long after the patent runs out. And of course that’s needlessly keeping cheap drugs off of the market, and extending a patent that doesn’t have any legal basis for extension.” With almost 18% of Iowa’s population over 65, these bills could play key parts in many people’s daily lives.