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Denver Post Praises Bipartisan #Path2Cures Effort

September 23, 2014

When Rep. Diana DeGette (CO-01) and Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (MI-06) launched the 21st Century Cures initiative in April, DeGette noted that there is bipartisan agreement that "America can be – it must be – the health care innovation capital of the world." Through a series of hearings, roundtables, and white papers, the committee has spent the past several months soliciting ideas from patients, researchers, medical professionals, and advocates all across the country about how to achieve this goal and accelerate the discovery, development, and delivery cycle of new cures and treatments. As The Denver Postnotes, 21st Century Cures is "an important collaboration … Not only could it accelerate biomedical breakthroughs, it could also ensure the United States retains its lead as the center of innovation – a lead that has eroded in recent years."

Read the full Sunday editorial here:

A (political) breakthrough on biomedical research

By The Denver Post Editorial Board

September 21, 2014

For those who have despaired of the two parties in Congress working together on behalf of important goals, brace yourselves for some good news: A powerful House Republican and Colorado's own Democratic Rep. Diana DeGette are joining in an ambitious effort to restructure funding and regulations around biomedical research to foster innovation and life-saving products.

It's an important collaboration called 21st Century Cures. Not only could it accelerate biomedical breakthroughs, it could also ensure the United States retains its lead as the center of innovation — a lead that has eroded in recent years.

The chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Fred Upton of Michigan, and DeGette have spent the past few months seeking advice from a broad spectrum of experts associated with biomedical research, from scientists to regulators to investors. And they intend to draft a bill by year's end to introduce in the next Congress.

"We've discovered there is quite a bit of consensus" on what to do, DeGette told us. And that consensus includes those running government agencies such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) — meaning they won't stand in the way.

DeGette points to several problems that need attention:

  • Reliable funding. Although funding for NIH was doubled in 2001, it has lost 25 percent of its buying power since because of budget freezes and cuts.
  • The obsolete structure of the federal agencies, which slows down approvals. As a result, a 21st Century white paper explains, "the timelines, size, failure rates, and costs of conducting trials [for new therapies] are at all-time highs, with administrative and regulatory burdens often contributing to such increases." Indeed, the cost of developing a new drug now exceeds $1 billion.
  • Lack of a centralized registry for those engaged in biomedical research. "If you had a registry — with informed consent for patients — then you could have one pipeline to get those big studies done," DeGette said. Large-scale genome trials could be done much more easily, she added.

There are other issues, too, but suffice it to say the legislation will cover a lot of ground. But that's also why it is potentially such an important initiative that, if done properly, should attract wide, bipartisan support.

After all, DeGette observed, "Addressing disease is not a partisan issue."