Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - January 21, 2009 - (Page 8) How Will Obama HIT Biopharm? George Laszlo speculates how health information technology in biopharm might fare under the new Obama administration. N 11 BioFutures Forging a true industry– academia partnership 13 CALENDAR Next month’s pharma events 3 NEWS Pharma’s next ten years 4 FROM THE EDITOR Obama and Pharma! James P. Blair/Getty Images atives and visitors to New York greeted the New Year in Times Square and Central Park seemingly impervious to the freezing temperature (19F/-7.2C) outside. Champagne bottles were popped at midnight as a magnificent fireworks display reflected off thousands of windows on high-rise office and apartment buildings nearby. The crowd seemed to shrug off the economic doom and gloom that infected most of 2008. There was lots of hopeful talk about Obama and sympathy for the difficult problems that he is inheriting. Everyone is wishing that things will go better in 2009. As we do in the biopharm industry, where many are not sure if the new guy in the White House is friend or foe. This is especially so in the US, a country where free market capitalism is fiercely defended and anything that smacks of socialism is treated with great suspicion. So what can we expect from Obama on the healthcare information technology (HIT) front? First, we should consider why nothing will happen fast: • Legislation moves serially through the House, Senate and then the Office of the President. • Democrats and Republicans fight each other on the issue of ‘big government.’ • Lobbyists come out in droves to twist the legislation to their liking. • Various government agencies weigh in with competing suggestions for solving the problem. • The population at large gets a chance to make comments and participate in hearings. • Academic, not-for-profit and private institutions come out to defend and push the programmes they have nurtured. • Healthcare consulting firms attempt to convince legislators and government agencies that they are the ones who know how to fix it all. • Software firms try to show anyone who will listen why their solution is the best way to manage everything. • Everybody asks “but how can we pay for it?”
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