National Minority Health Month Foundation Praises Congressional Black Caucus's Effort To Protect Medical Advancement Of Lifesaving Drugs

Gary Puckrein, PhD,
executive director of the National Minority Health Month Foundation, today
praised the Congressional Black Congress (CBC) for striving to ensure the
development of innovative and lifesaving drugs, a core purpose of the
Hatch- Waxman Act. "I am pleased that the CBC joins us in urging the Senate
Judiciary Committee to move to correct the current patent-law anomaly,"
said Dr. Puckrein. "The committee has the opportunity to make certain that
the development of lifesaving drugs is not halted simply because of an
administrative error."


In a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, the CBC highlights how
African Americans and other minorities suffer disproportionately from
certain diseases, such as stroke. African American men are 52 percent more
likely than white men to die from stroke, and African American women are 36
percent more likely than white women to die from stroke. In an initial
clinical testing, the drug Angiomax showed great promise in the treatment
and prevention of stroke and in open-heart surgery, but this blood thinner
will not be studied further unless the current legislation is corrected.



A comprehensive clinical trial showed Angiomax reduced serious bleeding
by 47 percent and lowered the cost of treatment by $800. Further, African
Americans (who are subject to even higher risk factors for coronary disease
than the overall population) experienced even greater improvements in
health outcomes, including less risk of major bleeding. Dr. Puckrein
concluded: "I urge the Judiciary Committee to correct the current patent
law anomaly. This correction is vital to the development of innovative,
lifesaving drugs," Puckrein concluded.



About the National Minority Health Month Foundation



Founded as a nonprofit organization in 1998, the National Minority
Health Month Foundation was established to strengthen national and local
efforts to eliminate the disproportionate burden of premature death and
preventable illness in racial and ethnic minorities and other special
populations through the use of evidence-based, data-driven initiatives. The
Foundation has developed a comprehensive relational data platform for
identifying the prevalence of health-status and health-care disparities at
the zip-code level. This centralized data warehouse allows the Foundation
to house vital statistics; demographic, environmental, claims,
prescription-drug, and clinical-laboratory values; health-care access
points, and other data. The Foundation is thus able to measure and forecast
health status in small geographic areas, evaluate the impact of specific
interventions, monitor changes in health outcomes, and serve as a valuable
resource for the health- disparities movement.


National Minority Health Month Foundation

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View drug information on Angiomax.