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

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The biopharmaceutical industry has argued that the five yearx of protection offered in a billby Rep. Henru Waxman, D-Calif., would stifle innovation. But the said in a reporrt earlier this month that the 12 years to 14 years that the industryh has said publicly it wants also wouldr hurt innovation anddelay patients’ access to cheapef drugs. A bill sponsored by Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., callsx for 12 years of data exclusivity that protects patents coveringg innovativebiotech therapies.
In a letter to Waxman, Nancy-Ann DeParle, Obama’w health care reform director, and budget director Peterr Orszagsaid “the seven-year policy in the FY 2010 budgett is a generous compromise between what the FTC research has concluded and what the pharmaceuticao industry has advocated.” The , however, said it is “extremelt concerned” that the seven-year plan is “ a risky shortcut to biosimilars.
” “We believ e this abbreviated period will undermin e the incentives necessary for continued biotech research into breakthrougj medicines and cures for diseases such as multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s and as well as unmet medical needs,” BIO CEO Jim Greenwoo said in a statement. Besides patent exclusivity, the industry has argued that drugs developed by biotechycompanies can’t be copied like pharmaceutical drugs because they are comple x to make and the finishef products can differ.