Biotechnology lobbyist extraordinaire G. Kirk Raab and otherleaders of California's high-technology health-care sector haveformed a coalition to address public policy issues affecting theindustry -- both in California and nationwide.

Located in South San Francisco, Calif., the California HealthcareInstitute will be led by Charles Edwards, former president andchief executive officer of Scripps Institutions of Medicine andScience; Raab, president and chief executive officer ofGenentech Inc., will be the chairman of the board.

"We formed the institute to put together a coalition of variousgroups involved in health-care in California," Raab toldBioWorld. "This includes pharmaceutical and biotechnologycompanies, as well as device manufacturers, healthmaintenance organizations, drug wholesalers and the like.

"The health-care industry in California employs as many peopleas the movie industry," he added. "With that amount of power,we hope to be able to influence the California congressionaldelegation (which constitutes 8 to 9 percent of the U.S.Congress) to do things we think are sound in terms ofimproving health-care and affecting the California economy."

The institute has a long list of goals. It plans to address stateand national health-care reforms that preserve incentives forbreakthrough medicines while helping to contain costs; aresolution to the issue of low-level radioactive waste disposal(in California, for example, all users of radioactive materialscurrently have to store the waste at their own site rather thana common one); and future funding for California's universitiesand other institutions of higher learning.

"One of the institute's first undertakings will be to quantify theeconomic contributions of California's biomedical and scientificcommunities," Raab said. The institute has already conducted asurvey of the 138 largest California health-care technologycompanies, which should be released next month. It willinclude data on employment potential and growth, capitalinvestments, R&D investments, taxes paid and other details,Raab said.

In addition to Raab, the California Healthcare Institute'sdirectors include Gordon Binder of Amgen Inc.; Lisa Conte ofShaman Pharmaceuticals Inc., Stanley Crooke of IsisPharmaceuticals Inc., Michael Sumner Estes of BaxterInternational, Paul Freiman of Syntex Corp., Donald Grimm ofHybritech Inc., John Groom of Athena Neurosciences Inc., DavidHale of Gensia Inc., Gavin Herbert of Allergan Inc., VaughnKailian of Cor Therapeutics Inc., Richard Lane of Merck & Co.Inc., David Robinson of Ligand Pharmaceuticals Inc. andStephen Sherwin of Cell Genesys Inc.

-- Jennifer Van Brunt Senior Editor

(c) 1997 American Health Consultants. All rights reserved.