House panel passes protection for drug makers

The House Energy and Commerce Committee passed an amendment to their broad health reform bill giving drug makers 12 years of exclusive rights to market new biologic drugs, "a setback" to the administration and consumer advocates who hoped to make generic drugs more widely available, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The panel voted 47-11 on the measure, which "would also allow 'evergreening,' the practice by pharmaceutical companies of making minimal adjustments to their drugs, such as creating extended-release versions, as a way to lengthen their monopoly."

"Mr. Obama and some Democrats, including the energy committee chairman, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., have pushed for getting generic versions of complex biologic drugs to the market in five to seven years, saying it would speed up access for consumers to cheaper generic brands and help reduce the country's health-care costs," the Journal reports (Mundy, 8/1).