BIO Congratulates President Bush on Victory

WASHINGTON, D.C. (November 3, 2004) -- Carl B. Feldbaum, president of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), issued the following statement on election results:

“BIO congratulates President George W. Bush on his victory, and we look forward to working with the administration and the 109th Congress to help the biotechnology industry realize its full potential to provide solutions to our nation’s health-care, agricultural and environmental challenges.

“We expect health care to be front and center on the domestic agenda over the next four years. BIO supports expanding access to existing biotech medicines while fostering continued innovation to develop new products that address unmet needs in areas such as Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, obesity and cancer.

“Successful development of therapies for these diseases and many genetic conditions will depend on a regulatory climate that promotes biotech research. The Bush administration now has the opportunity to nominate a new commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and to fill other posts of critical interest to the biotechnology community as they become open. Over the next four years, leaders of the Department of Health and Human Services, the FDA, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the National Institutes of Health will be in a position to strengthen the research climate, with potentially profound effects on our industry and the patients we serve.”

BIO represents more than 1,000 biotechnology companies, academic institutions, state biotechnology centers and related organizations in all 50 U.S. states and 33 other nations. BIO members are involved in the research and development of health-care, agricultural, industrial and environmental biotechnology products..

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