NOVI – Don’t look for the Obama Administration to be as friendly to big Pharma and the life sciences industry as has been outgoing President George W. Bush, a legislative update panel at the fourth annual MichBio Expo contended Wednesday.
Obama will try to get more people involved in preventive medicine, which doesn?t emphasize pharmaceuticals as much as what has been the norm for the past eight years, said Peter Pellerito, senior policy consultant at the Biotechnology Industry Organization. He said Obama likely will seek to allow more individuals to buy into Medicare to solve the problem of the uninsured..
Any change will most likely be incremental because of huge federal deficits and Wall Street?s meltdown.
Both Pellerito and MichBio CEO Stephen Rapundalo, who hosted the Expo at the Rock Financial Showcase in Novi, expressed concern with the ouster of U.S. Rep. John Dingell (D-Dearborn) who lead the Energy and Commerce Committee. His replacement on the powerful committee that overseas health care is California Rep. Henry Waxman, whom both men said was not a friend of pharma.
But other more bioscience friendly Michigan legislators do remain: US Sen. Debbie Stabenow, U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Menominee) on the same Energy and Commerce Committee, U.S. Rep. John Conyers (D-Detroit) on patent law, and U.S. Rep. Vern Ehlers (R-Grand Rapids) on science policy.
In a session later in the day that looked at the latest technologies in the life sciences, Oakland University’s G. Rasul Chaudhry said a the Obama Administration coupled with the passage of Michigan’s Proposal 2 should breathe new life into embryonic stem cell research. He said there are now 600,000 embryos in freezers in fertility clinics that could be used in research.
The Expo, which will be in Kalamazoo next year, concluded with a keynote address from Christine Poon, vice chair of health care giant Johnson & Johnson, who said that life sciences companies of all sizes are “making big bets on the future” and observed that “this is a pretty exhilarating time right now.”
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