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'McClellan Will Provide Necessary Leadership to Implement Medicare Law'

WASHINGTON, D.C. (March 12, 2004) — Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) President Carl B. Feldbaum issued the following statement following last night's Senate confirmation of Mark B. McClellan, M.D., Ph.D., as the new administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

"We offer our congratulations to Dr. McClellan on his appointment as CMS administrator. Based on the tremendous leadership he provided as Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner, we fully expect that Dr. McClellan will demonstrate that same ability in his new role at CMS to tackle the difficult task of implementing the Medicare law passed late last year.

"Although he led the FDA for little more than a year, Dr. McClellan set a course of streamlined regulation that enabled many new medicines to gain approval. We are optimistic that as CMS Administrator, Dr. McClellan will continue to apply his steady management approach to ensure that the nation's most vulnerable patients will have access to the best medicines available.

"It is our hope that Dr. McClellan's successor at the FDA will continue to work with industry to promote innovation and produce significant and, in some cases, life-saving therapies for the American public."

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. For more information, visit www.bio.org.

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