San Diego is a hub for life science research. According to San Diego Regional EDC, the region is home to more than 600 life science companies and 80 research institutes, which employ more than 42,000 people. Much of this industry is located in California’s 49th Congressional District, represented by Congressman Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Last Friday, Rep. Issa sat down with many of San Diego’s life science leaders.
The informal discussion was attended by the CEOs and senior leaders of Life Technologies, Orexigen, ResMed, Arena Pharmaceuticals, Zimmer, BD, and other companies. Sanford-Burnham’s president and interim CEO, Kristiina Vuori, M.D., Ph.D., spoke on behalf of nonprofit research in San Diego. Life science associations BIOCOM, CONNECT, and the California Healthcare Institute (CHI) were represented. The event took place at Life Technologies in Carlsbad, Calif., just north of San Diego. Carlsbad Mayor Matt Hall also attended.
For Vuori and other participants, the roundtable with Rep. Issa provided an opportunity to discuss issues important to the life science community. They also touched on what the federal government could do to help reduce the hurdles to innovation.
“The system is clearly broken,” Vuori said, referring to the arduous process of moving medical discoveries from the lab to the clinic.
There were four main issues raised by the roundtable leaders: 1) oppressive Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulation, 2) lack of stable federal research funding, particularly with respect to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), 3) desire for increased clarity in patent law, and 4) need for immigration reform for highly skilled foreign scientists.
Rep. Issa is known as a fiscal conservative who opposes taxes and what he calls “out-of-control government spending.” In his opinion, the only viable way to pay for everything and still fully fund the NIH and reform the FDA—without doubling income tax—is to “get control of our bureaucracies. They’ve driven up costs by an amount more than the entire NIH budget.”
According to Rep. Issa, there is light at the end of the tunnel. “But it’s hard work,” he said. “We need to figure out how to streamline the process of developing new medicines at lower costs, so they also cost less for consumers.”
As federal budget issues continue to evolve in the coming months and years, San Diego’s life science leaders will be looking to Rep. Issa and other local representatives to support the region’s innovation economy—and the patients waiting for better healthcare options.