Using follow-on biologics to pay for ... national service?

The potential savings from follow-on biologics have been eyed as one way to help pay for broader health care reform, but one of the key sponsors of legislation seems to have a different idea. Senate Health Committee Chairman Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., said in a recent 1letter thanking Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, for his work on legislation to encourage national service that the "carefully negotiated" FOB bill "will save patients and taxpayers billions of dollars - enough to offset the cost of the national service bill." The Senate FOB bill, which Kennedy and Hatch helped develop, has not yet been reintroduced this session, but sponsors say they are sticking firm to 12 years of exclusivity. The brand industry hopes the bill will adopt a tiered exclusivity approach instead (2"The Pink Sheet" DAILY, March 24, 2009)