A longtime effort to repeal a federal tax on medical device makers’ revenue is bubbling up again.
Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., included repeal in a draft bill for comprehensive tax reform that he released last month.
Camp is chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Ways and Means committee.
He said in a statement that he included the repeal because it had “strong bipartisan support.” Legislators on both sides of the aisle in device-heavy states, such as California, have either put forth or supported various attempts to cut the tax.
The 2.3% tax on device makers’ revenue started at the beginning of 2013. Supporters have billed it as a way to raise about $30 billion toward paying for healthcare reform. Devices such as contact lenses, hearing aids and eyeglasses are exempt.
Camp said his plan would generally leave Affordable Care Act policies “untouched and for a later debate on healthcare.”
AdvaMed, a Washington, D.C.-based trade group, praised Camp’s draft legislation. Its board of directors includes Michael Mussallem, chief executive of Irvine-based Edwards Lifesciences Corp., a maker of replacement heart valves.
“We are very pleased Rep. Camp has included repeal of the medical device tax in his priorities for comprehensive tax reform,” Stephen Ubl, AdvaMed’s chief executive, said in a statement.
Ubl called the tax “a drag on job creation, economic growth and medical progress.”
AdvaMed released a survey last month on the tax that said industry jobs lost or foregone, due to the levy, totaled 33,000.
There have been other attempts to repeal the medical device tax in recent months.
Reps. Ron Kind, D-Wis., and Erik Paulsen, R-Minn., reintroduced the Protect Medical Innovation Act of 2013 to get rid of the levy.
That bill, which is still in committee, ended up with more than 260 co-sponsors, including retiring Rep. John Campbell, R-Irvine; Dana Rohrabacher, R-Huntington Beach; and Edward Royce, R-Fullerton.
Republican Reps. Darrell Issa and Ken Calvert, whose districts cover small portions of South Orange County, also co-sponsored that bill.
Orange County is a major center of the medical device industry, and many companies are in Campbell’s district.
Kind and Paulsen represent suburban areas touched by medical devices, particularly Paulsen. Medtronic Inc. and St. Jude Medical Inc., both of which have OC operations, are based in the Minneapolis area.
Republican Orrin Hatch and Democrat Amy Klobuchar, have introduced a repeal bill in the U.S. Senate.
California’s senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, are not co-sponsoring that bill.
Clinical Trial Results Positive
Irvine-based drug maker AtheroNova Inc. announced what it called “preliminary positive” first-phase results of a clinical trial late last month.
AtheroNova’s AHRO-001 compound is being developed to treat atherosclerosis from the buildup of several substances into plaques, including substances such as cholesterol and fat.
It’s derived from bile salts, which are naturally found in the liver and break down fat in digestion.
AtheroNova didn’t release specifics about the data. It said in a news release that trial data remain “blinded at this time pending additional regulatory filings.”
The company is conducting the study in Moscow on more than 50 patients to characterize the safety and tolerability of orally administered AHRO-001, according to the release.
“The encouraging safety and tolerability profile will allow AtheroNova and our clinical trial partner, OOO CardioNova, to move forward with our Russian clinical development plans,” said Thomas Gardner, AtheroNova’s chief executive.
Bits and Pieces
Quality Systems Inc., an Irvine-based medical software maker, said its NextGen Healthcare Information Systems subsidiary announced it and Kansas City-based competitor Cerner Corp. have bilateral data-sharing capability. NextGen said the certification allows health systems, hospitals and medical practices to achieve health information-exchange goals. … San Clemente-based ICU Medical Inc. said it awarded new Chief Executive Vivek Jain an “employment inducement option” to buy 182,366 shares of its common stock at $58.79 per share. The maker of intravenous connectors and other medical devices said in a news release that the option and another inducement grant of restricted stock were made outside of its stock incentive plan “as a material inducement to the decision by Mr. Jain to accept employment” as ICU’s chief executive. … University of California, Irvine’s School of Medicine and the Association for Medical Ethics hosted a symposium in late February on transparency and disclosure issues. Speakers included UCI Medical Center Chief Executive Terry Belmont and Erwin Chermerinsky, dean of UC Irvine’s law school.
