GPhA Praises Plan to Increase Funding for Office of Generic Drugs

Last week, the Generic Pharmaceutical Association (GPhA Arlington, VA, www.gphaonline.org) praised a proposal by the Senate Agricultural AppropriationsSubcommittee that, if approved, would provide $10 million in additionalfunding for the US Food and Drug Administration's (Rockville, MD, www.fda.gov) Office ofGeneric Drugs (OGD). The increase is included in the Subcommittee'sfiscal 2007 Department of Agriculture, Rural Development, FDA, andRelated Agencies appropriations bill. GPhA said the increase wouldbenefit healthcare purchasers and programs by accelerating the approvalof less expensive generic drugs.

"We believe this proposed increase represents an investment by Congressin making more affordable medicines available to consumers and publicand private healthcare purchasers. The return on this investment willbe billions of dollars in savings," said GPhA President and CEOKathleen Jaeger. "Funding for OGD has remained relatively flat over thepast several years, and the backlog of generic drug applications hascontinued to grow. Additional funding will better enable OGD to processthese applications more rapidly and provide consumers with access toaffordable generic drugs in a more timely fashion." Jaeger promisedthat GPhA would collaborate with Congress to find more funding for OGD.

OGD currently has a backlog of more than 800 generic drug applications,which is expected to worsen as more than $100 billion in brandedpharmaceutical products go off patent by 2010.