A field hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee held by Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah) at the University of Utah on Friday discussed the FDA's Critical Path Initiative, intended to bridge the gaps between promising medical concepts and patient treatments, the Salt Lake City Deseret Morning News reports. The initiative would combine genetic medicine and therapeutics during development of a drug or medical device to evaluate safety and effectiveness and also identify those people who are most likely to respond to the treatment. The effort is driven in part by the recent decline in new medical products, according to the Deseret Morning News.

FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach at the hearing said, "We are on the verge of the most profound transformation in the history of medicine." He added that the treatments resulting from the initiative "will look no more like the past than a butterfly looks like a caterpillar." Von Eschenbach noted that reaching this goal will require money, innovation and information sharing. Raymond Woosley, CEO of the Critical Path Institute, spoke at the hearing about the costs of moving a new treatment from the conceptual phase to the market (Collins, Salt Lake City Deseret Morning News, 6/4).

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