Biotech And The President's Budget
Despite President Bush's fiscal 1991 budget request of $3.6 billion for biotechnology research and development, a 6% increase over 1990, the Industrial Biotechnology Association is displeased by at least one aspect of the plan.
The thorn in the side of the IBA is the budget's inclusion of a U.S. Food and Drug Administration user fee, which would be assessed to any company applying for a product review. The budget calls for these fees to provide the FDA with $157 million in 1991. IBA President Richard D. Godown, who last year testified against such a fee before the House Appropriations Committee's Subcommittee on Rural Development, Agriculture, and Related Agencies, says that a user fee would likely suppress future product R&D by increasing new drug development costs. Godown believes the fees would be especially burdensome to small biotechnology companies.
Overall, however, Godown characterized the president's budget as...
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