President Joe Bidens administration has decided not to pursue an untested legal strategy that could dramatically lower the cost of medication for prostate cancer patients, angering key lawmakers who fear the administration is punting on challenging the power of the pharmaceutical industry.

Patient advocates and progressives had hoped the administration would use its executive powers to enable production of generic versions of Xtandi, a prostate cancer drug developed with federal funding at UCLA. The drugs manufacturer charges up to $190,000 a year for the drug in the United States while charging a fraction of that price in other developed countries.

That price imposes a significant, sometimes crushing financial burden on some individual patients while significantly driving up costs for the federal government as well. And advocates say it doesnt have to be that way.

Specifically, they want the administration to use its authority under a 1980 law to march in and claim rights to drugs developed with federal research funding if drug companies do not make them available to the public on reasonable terms. In such cases, the government can license production to other firms or, in theory, produce the drug on its own.