Two recent op-eds by Paul Pescatello, president and CEO
of CURE, support the Pathway for Biosimilars Act, a bill now
before the U.S. House of Representatives (HR 1548).
Writing in the July 13
Norwich Bulletin along with Jim Greenwood, president of the
Biotechnology Industry Organization, Pescatello reminds
Connecticut citizens that Connecticut is at the center of
the bioscience industry, employing more than 18,000 and
spending more than $6 billion annually on operations within
the state.
Pescatello and Greenwood
point out that biotech companies attract billions of dollars
in investment based on the promise of innovative and
patent-protected research. They favor HR 1548 because it
provides a 12-year data exclusivity period for the inventors
of specific biologics.
In a July 16 piece in the
New Haven Register, Pescatello points to research by
economists at the University of Connecticut, the University
of North Carolina, and Duke University that shows it takes
12 to 17 years of market exclusivity for biotech companies
to break even on a new biologic in sales.
He urges Congress, as it
weighs reforming the health care system, to do so in a way
that fosters development of biologics, which are
increasingly being seen as the key to treating such serious
illnesses as Alzheimer's, diabetes, and cancer.
Pescatello wrote an op-ed
for the May 30 Hartford Courant in which he come out
against a bill he feels is unnecessary and
counterproductive, a proposal to ban "gifts" to
doctors.
Click the links below for
the complete op-eds:
Hartford
Courant May 30
Norwich
Bulletin
July 13
New
Haven Register
July 16
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