Stephan Lawton Joins BIO As Vice President For Regulatory Affairs, General Counsel
This is a new position at BIO with greatly expanded responsibilities, Feldbaum said. Put simply, our intention is to create the best federal regulatory affairs shop in Washington with in-depth coverage of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Department of Agriculture, Environmental Protection Agency and Health Care Financing Administration.
Lawton, a former chief counsel of the House Commerce Subcommittee on Health and Environment, has served as counsel to BIO on regulatory affairs. He will continue as counsel and join BIO full time after completing transfer of his law practice to his colleagues at Hogan and Hartson.
In addition to his work with the House Commerce Committee, Stephan Lawton has spent more than 20 years in private practice representing biotechnology companies, public health organizations, medical specialty societies and academic health centers on regulatory and legislative issues.
Among the areas Lawton will focus on immediately is the required Congressional reauthorization of the Prescription Drug User Fee Act, a key element of the 1997 FDA Modernization Act. He represented BIO and several of its member companies during Congress’ formulation of the 1997 FDA reform law.
Also, as our national organization’s first general counsel, Feldbaum said, Steve has the experience to assist both BIO and our emerging companies in creating new partnerships, like the one we formed with Chemdex, to provide greatly enhanced services to our members. Chemdex is an e-commerce company providing services and supplies for the life sciences industries.
Lawton said, I am very excited and pleased to be BIO’s firstgeneral counsel and look forward to assisting member companies, many of whom are already friends and clients, in facing challenges and opportunities in the new century. I hope to be able to apply my regulatory and public policy experience gained on Capitol Hill and during private practice to the benefit of BIO’s members. I greatly admire the biotechnology industry and its contributions to the public health.
Lawton has served on several U.S. Health and Human Servicesand Institute of Medicine advisory committees. He was the first chair of the National Advisory Commission on Childhood Vaccines, which supervises the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Compensation Act. Lawton also has authored articles in academic and legal journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine and Food, Drug, Cosmetic Law Journal.
BIO represents more than 900 companies, academic institutionsand biotech centers in all 50 states and in 26 other nations. BIO members are involved in the research and development of health-care, agricultural, industrial and environmental biotechnology products.
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