20 June 2016 - The US government has declined a petition to lower the price of a drug for advanced prostate cancer developed with taxpayer money.

The public interest group Knowledge Ecology International petitioned the U.S. National Institutes of Health in January to reduce the $129,000-a year list price of Xtandi, made by the Japanese drugmaker Astellas Pharma.

The petition was supported by the Union for Affordable Cancer Treatment, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and two congressmen, Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vermont, and Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas.

NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins, in a letter released Monday by Knowledge Ecology, said that there was no justification for allowing a generic drugmaker to produce Xtandi because there is no shortage of it.

The group said it will appeal the decision to Sylvia Burwell, the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

For more details, go to: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/nih-cut-price-taxpayer-funded-prostate-cancer-drug-40000136