[Ip-health] REMINDER: CPTech Brown Bag Lunch with Peter Pitts Next Week

[Benjamin Krohmal]

The Consumer Project on Technology (CPTech) is hosting a brown bag
lunch seminar by Peter Pitts:  =93Is a Medical Innovation Prize Fund
Compatible with Patient-Based Evidence?=94


Date:  Thursday, November 9th, 2006

Time:  12-1:30pm

Venue:  1621 Connecticut Avenue Suite 500, Washington, DC 20009

Summary:  Peter Pitts, a writer at Drugwonks.com and former PR
director at the Food and Drug Administration, will argue *against*
the feasibility of prize funds for promoting accessible
pharmaceutical innovation.

This one should be lively.

RSVP to ben.krohmal@cptech.org or 202 332 2670.


Details:

Recent CPTech seminars have favorably discussed proposals to promote
pharmaceutical innovation through a public fund rather than market
monopolies.  On November 9th, Peter Pitts will present an important
criticism of these proposals.

Peter Pitts is perhaps best know to members of this list as one of
the =93wonks=94 at the pharmaceutical blog Drugwonks.com.  He was the
Chief Messaging Officer at the FDA from 2002-2004, and he is co-
founder of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest.  Formerly
a senior fellow for health care studies at the Pacific Research
Institute, he is currently senior vice president for health affairs
at Manning, Selvage & Lee.

Pitts notes that proposed medical innovation prize funds would reward
pharmaceutical innovations in proportion to the incremental health
benefits they provide.  However, Pitts will argue, evidence of
incremental health benefits provided by new drugs is expensive and
difficult to obtain and often inadequate.  Trends toward
pharmacogentic technology and improved diagnostic tools suggest that
determining the overall health benefits of future pharmaceutical
developments will be even more difficult, if not impossible, as new
drugs will be evaluated on a basis more narrowly tailored to
individual patients than to the population as a whole. As a result,
compensation for pharmaceutical innovators is most appropriately
determined by the spending choices of well-informed consumers who
know their own medical situations best.

Other Upcoming Brown Bag Events:

November 16 (same place and time) - "Next Steps and Strategies on
Bilateral Free Trade Agreements"

If you would like to join us for either event, please RSVP your name,
title, organization and contact information to ben.krohmal@cptech.org
or 202 332 2670.

Benjamin Krohmal
Project Director
Consumer Project on Technology
Tel: +1-202-332-2670 ex. 14
Fax: +1-202-332-2673
ben.krohmal@cptech.org