MEDICINE

Companies propose to pay the government to extend monopolies on
bestselling brandname drugs.

WASHINGTONProminent drug companies are making a lastminute push in
Congress to forestall cheaper generic versions of some popular medicines
that bring them hundreds of millions of dollars.

Critics say the effort illustrates how the end of a congressional session
is prime time for lobbying.

The drug companies, led by New Jerseybased BristolMyers Squibb, are
proposing to pay the government to extend their market monopolies on
bestselling brandname drugs such as the cancer treatment Taxol and the
allergy medicine Claritin.

The companies' money would be used for research on cancer, heart disease,
AIDS and other diseases. In return, generic makers of such drugs would be
frozen out of the market for up to five more years.

On Tuesday, the Senate Appropriations health subcommittee which is
pushing to complete work on its annual spending bill work on its annual
spending bill before Congress recesses for the year took time out for a
hearing to examine the idea.

Critics fear the provision might be attached to a mustpass spending bill.

"This specialinterest deal is breathtaking in its audacity," said Rep.
Henry Waxman, DCalif., an author of a 1984 law that controls the way
exclusive markets are granted to pharmaceutical makers. "It boils down to a
simple but profitable quid pro quo for the beneficiary companies."

Sen. Richard Durbin, DIll., said the proposed amendment reminded him of a
$50 billion tax break for the tobacco industry that was slipped into a bill
just before Congress recessed for the summer. The bill passed, but when the
provision became public, embarrassed lawmakers were forced to undo it.

"Little did I know that another rotten mackerel would come floating by in
just another few weeks," Durbin said.

But Jane Kramer, a spokeswoman for BristolMyers Squibb, cited a long list
of patientadvocacy groups, from breastcancer survivors to the Cystic
Fibrosis Foundation, that support the proposal because it would provide
research money for their causes.

"The issue is patient care, and what (treatments) patients might have
available," she said. She acknowledged that as the nation's largest maker
of anticancer drugs, the company has financially supported many of the
patient groups that are backing the legislation.

Under a variety of arrangements, drug companies are given exclusive rights
to make drugs for a set period of time before generic versions can be
marketed.

The proposal being reviewed was first floated several weeks ago in a
private meeting between lobbyists for BristolMyers Squibb and staff
members of the House Commerce Committee. It would create a "demonstration
project" in which drug makers would pay 3 percent of the money they make
from a particular drug to support biomedical research. In return, they
would receive up to five additional years of protection from generics.

The provision could apply to any drug approved by the Food and Drug
Administration in the past five yearspotentially dozens of products.

BristolMyers Squibb wants to protect Taxol, a chemotherapy treatment for
breast and ovarian cancer that brought the company more than $500 million
in business last year. Taxol's exclusive market expires in December.

Another supporter, drug maker Schering Plough, is facing expiration next
month of its exclusive market for Claritin.