Federal Government to Assist Pharmaceutical Developments
April 14th, 2011 // 9:35 am @ admin
Jan. 25, 2011: National Institutes of Health has approved Obama’s decision to assist with funding for drug research and development through a Federal Research Center.
The Obama administration has decided to go forward with a decision to develop a drug development center. The announcement, initially made in December 2010, revealed that the administration was considering such a course. The goal of the center will be to research and create new medications, as the pace of drug development has slowed over the years.
The center will be known as the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences. The government will be responsible for establishing, building, staffing, and maintaining the center. The undertaking will be a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
According to reports from the National Institutes of Health, development of new drugs has been in a steady decline for the past fifteen years by pharmaceutical companies. The NIH board of directors voted to approve the creation of the new center as a means to spur drug development. The law prohibits the NIH from having more than 27 centers and institutions, so one will have to be dissolved to create the facility.
Estimates put the cost of developing a single medication to as much as one billion dollars. The administration anticipates investment dollars from drug companies to assist in paying for the venture.
Some citizens as well as politicians view moving drug research and development from the private industry to a government run venture as an assault on capitalism. With government spending at an all-time high, citizens are questioning why the President is backing such a costly business. Political blogs and message boards are active with citizens that are unhappy with the decision. There are also those who applaud the effort to jump-start the development of new medications.