• Wall Street Journal, American Public Media, Monday, July 13, 2009 10:39 AM

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee will consider a bill this week that grants biologic drugs -- those engineered from living cells -- a total of 13½ years of intellectual-property protection, Alicia Mundy reports. The proposal was introduced by chairman Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and may prevail because it may help keep the pharmaceutical industry on board with the health-care overhaul sought by President Barack Obama.

But consumer groups and some other lawmakers are attacking the provision, saying that it would hamper innovation. Separate bills propose a base of five years' exclusivity, with a possibility of extension. "Biotechnology start-up involves high risk and high cost, but you can't give these companies open-ended protection from generics," says Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio).

Meanwhile, the Obama administration may cut a tax deduction drug companies get for television advertising, Sally Herships reports on American Public Media's "Marketplace." "This would probably do away a $4 to $6 billion category of advertising, which supports not only jobs but media," according to Adonis Hoffman, an attorney for the American Association of Advertising Agencies.

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