[Letter to Edward Kennedy from Ellen C. Cooper]

JAN 20 '93 05:16PM SYNTEX DR ELLEN COOPER

P. 1/2

January 20, 1993
Senator Edward Kennedy, Chair
Senator Nancy Landon Kassebaum, Ranking Member
Senate Committee on Labor & Human Resources
U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C., 20510
Dear Senators Kennedy and Kassebaum:
I urge you to support new provisions in the NIH Reauthorization Bill (S.1)
that are intended to increase the authority of the Office of AIDS Research
at NIH. As the founding director of the Division of Antiviral Drug Products
at the FDA, which is responsible for regulating and approving new AIDS
drugs, I had the opportunity to observe firsthand the inefficiencies that
result from an uncoordinated and inadequately managed national AIDS
research effort. After leaving government a little over a year ago, I have
also had the opportunity to experience it from the other side, as a director
of clinical research at a mid-sized pharmaceutical company seeking to
work with the governament in the development of new therapies for AIDS
and other life-threatening diseases.
Although many important new discoveries have been made during the last
decade as a result of government funding for AIDS research, it remains a
lethal disease, with no near term prospect of a cure or preventive vaccine.
In addition to the heart rending personal tragedies for the infected
individuals and their families, our society is losing too many of its most
talented citizens, and it has already begun to experience the
unprecedented impact this epidemic will have on the health care system
and drug development establishment in this country. As the epidemic
continues to grow, we must be cognizant of the tremendous political and
social upheaval that this disease is likely to cause worldwide. For all of
these reasons, it is critical that the preeminent medical research entity
in the world, the NIH, provide a model for inspired leadership and broadbased strategic planning in the ongoing war on this devastating disease.
Thus, a redoubling of support for the AIDS research effort in this country
is as vital to our national interest as it is to our collective well-being. A
substantial part of this effort must come from public funds, where bottom
line business factors are not a driving consideration, and the potential for
broadly-based, strategic planning exists. It is important that one office
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