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Article: Hearings to Revamp Orphan Drug Act Begin
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- October 1, 1987
- Author:
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Congress begins hearings today on legislation that would
dramatically reform the Orphan Drug Act, a four-year-old bill that
encourages private industry to produce drugs for rare diseases.
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), who chairs the House Health and
Environment subcommittee, has proposed eliminating the controversial
provision in the existing law that gives drug companies a seven-year
monopoly over any drug they develop for so-called "orphan"
diseases-those with less than 200,000 patients.
Under Waxman's amendments, the Orphan Drug Act would continue to
give drug manufacturers special tax incentives to develop orphan
drugs. But the markets for those drugs would be thrown open for the ...