US President Obama calls for modification of health care reform biosimilars provisions

In an initiative to speed up US health care reform and reconcile differences between the proposals coming out of the Senate and the House of Representatives, President Barack Obama and top Congressional Democrats ' including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Democrat, California) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Democrat, Nevada) - held a marathon negotiating session this week in an effort to thrash out agreements on what is the President's top domestic priority.

This time, the contentious issue of a regulatory pathway for the approval of 'biosimilars,' copies of genetically-derived pharmaceuticals, was on the agenda. Senior House Democrats said the talks were making progress, but had not produced firm agreements.

Specifically, President Obama has reportedly asked Ms Pelosi and Mr Reid to modify biosimilars provisions in the health care reform legislation to reduce the exclusivity period for pioneer biologics to 10 years or less.