House ‘BioBond’ Bill Aims to Get Medical Research Back on Track
By Jeannie Baumann
Biomedical companies and universities could jump-start clinical trials disrupted by the pandemic under a bipartisan House proposal to establish a new federally backed loan program.
Reps. Bobby L. Rush (D-Ill.) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) will introduce legislation Friday that aims to boost “innovative biomedical research into therapies to address unmet medical needs,” according to a copy of the bill obtained by Bloomberg Law. They modeled their proposal for “BioBonds” after green bonds, which are fixed-term loans to finance projects that will benefit the environment….Karen Petrou had been working since 2013 with her late husband, Basil Petrou, on creating a loan guarantee program for medical research that would appeal to both the clinical trial and finance industries. “It’s a way of totally changing the way early stage, biomedical translational research is funded, from equity investments to loans,” she said. The co-founder and managing partner of Federal Financial Analytics, Inc., also sits on the board for Foundation Fighting Blindness because it’s the leading funder of the type of blindness she has. The idea was to start a pilot project that focused on research devoted to eye diseases and conditions. They initially planned to move slowly and try broaden it to the larger community at large if the targeted
loans were successful…
