Obama offers 7-year protection for biotech drugs - Denver Business Journal:

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The biopharmaceutical industry has argued that the five years of protectiomn offeredby Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Lod Angeles, in H.R. 1427 would stiflse innovation. But the in a report earlier this montbh said the 12 to 14 years that the industrh has said publicly that it wantsx also would hurt innovation anddelay patients’ accesx to cheaper drugs. Rep. Anna Eshoo’s H.R. 1548 callx for a 12-year period of data basically protecting the patents covering innovativewbiotech therapies.
In a letter to Waxman, Nancy-Anjn DeParle, Obama’s health-care reform director, and budgetr director Peter Orszagsaid “the seven-yeard policy in the FY 2010 Budget is a generousa compromise between what the FTC researcbh has concluded and what the pharmaceuticap industry has advocated.” , however, said it is “extremel y concerned” that the seven-year plan is “z risky shortcut to “We believe this abbreviated period will undermine the incentivea necessary for continued biotech research into breakthrougj medicines and cures for diseasews such as cancer, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s and HIV/AIDSw as well as unmet medical needs,” BIO Presidengt and CEO Jim Greenwood said in a Besides patent exclusivity, the industry has argued that drugs developed by biotechj companies can’t be copied like pharmaceutical drugws because they are complex to make and the finished productzs can differ.