Healthcare reform: ‘We’ve come too far to end it now’

Perhaps Smokey Robinson’s lyrics say it best: “We’ve come too far to end it now.” That is exactly where we are today in the debate over healthcare reform.

The simple fact is that the “status quo” no longer exists in our healthcare system. The failure to pass some form of healthcare reform this year will constitute a huge step backward. So much progress has been made on finding consensus on key areas of reform that to fail now would be detrimental for all groups interested in healthcare — but most importantly for patients and their families.

While significant issues remain, Democrats and Republicans have come to agreement on several core principles. And interested groups as divergent as hospitals, doctors, pharmaceutical manufacturers, nurses and labor unions have all stepped up and made compromises in the interest of finding common ground.

One example of this newly formed consensus comes on the issue of biosimilars. Biosimilars, often erroneously referred to as biogenerics, are biotech-based medicines that are similar to, but not the same as, breakthrough biologics. Biologics represent the cutting edge of medicine, saving and extending the lives of patients living with debilitating diseases including cancer, diabetes and Parkinson’s.

The approval of biosimilars has been debated on Capitol Hill for several years. After these lengthy — and often heated — debates, large bipartisan majorities on key committees in the House and Senate voted to allow the Food and Drug Administration to approve biosimilars. These provisions will expand access to life-saving medicines, reduce costs and preserve the incentives needed for future biomedical innovation.

For patients fighting diseases such as cancer, ALS, Alzheimer’s and HIV/AIDS, however, there is no debate about the way forward. The status quo, in which such diseases are incurable and patients (and families) are forced to hope that new medicines can be discovered in time, cannot and should not continue.

This year, more than 145,000 Americans will be diagnosed with colon cancer, and nearly 50,000 deaths from the disease are expected. And while there are seven FDA-approved drugs (two of them biologics) for treating colon cancer on the market, this is not enough for such a deadly disease. Patients and families, along with researchers, are working for the day when newer, even more advanced treatments can help extend and improve patients’ lives, with the ultimate goal of finding a cure for this devastating disease.

Such biomedical innovation is critical to improving healthcare, and it is our best hope for new treatments and devices that can overcome disease and disability. The bipartisan biosimilars language, which is included in both the House and Senate versions of the healthcare reform legislation, would provide a path for continuing research and development, which can lead to such breakthroughs.

In approaching the issue of biosimilars, lawmakers balanced the need of today’s patients to have access to biologics at lower prices with the need of future patients to have access to advanced treatments and cures. Patients battling diseases need more than just decreased costs. They need scientists to continue research and development aimed at finding new medicines and improved treatments.

It’s nothing short of impressive that Democrats, Republicans, and a diverse array of more than 110 patient advocacy and physician groups, university and research organizations have joined with biotech innovators and investors to put aside our many differences to support this balanced approach to biosimilars. It would be a mistake for Congress to dismantle the biosimilars compromise. Patients waiting for new therapies and cures as well as increased access to life-saving medications should not be forced to wait one more year. We have been waiting too long already.

This careful compromise underscores just how close we are to improving health care in this country. To come this far, but fail to take the final steps necessary to move forward, leaves us in a position of falling backward.

Spiegel, esq., is CEO of the Colon Cancer Alliance.