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Urge Your Senators to Support Sen. Specter's Health Reform Amendment!

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As the health care debate continues to move along in the U.S. Senate, PAN is pleased to endorse the Cures Acceleration Network (CAN) Act of 2009, introduced by Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA) as an amendment to the health reform bill in the Senate. Sen. Specter's amendment (SA 2866) puts a renewed focus on research and development in the health care debate. As you know, Sen. Specter is Senate Co-Chair of the Bicameral Congressional Caucus on Parkinson's Disease.

One issue that has been missing from the health care debate on Capitol Hill is improving the process for the development of new drugs and therapies. It is important that we accelerate the time between discovery and approval of the promising drugs and therapies of tomorrow for people living with Parkinson's and many other diseases. PAN has focused on the troubling trend of promising research being delayed in the development pipeline for quite some time now. This is why Sen. Specter's amendment is so important, and why PAN strongly supports it.

The CAN Act seeks to cut the time between discovery and development of new drugs and therapies through new grant-making mechanisms at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Sen. Specter's amendment will establish CAN within the Office of the Director of NIH and authorize grants to move discovery from the lab into the next generation of therapies. CAN will be overseen by a Board of diverse membership and expertise, and will receive input from key stakeholders, patient advocacy organizations, and agencies outside of NIH. The bill also includes the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the work that CAN will undertake, providing a vital link to NIH and the drug approval process.

Sen. Specter's amendment will fund the research we need to move discoveries forward. You can help ensure research and development is included in the Senate health reform bill by e-mailing both of your senators today to ask them to support Sen. Specter's amendment.

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