Aurora Sentinel - Touring Aurora Bioscience Park, Bennet Touts Medical, Economic Gains

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By Adam Golstein

According to U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, the medical breakthroughs taking place at the Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora could do more than save lives.

The research centered at the former Fitzsimons Army Hospital could also help resuscitate the local and national economy, the senator explained Monday, Aug. 22. Bennet joined Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Margaret Hamburg for a firsthand view of the campus, touring labs and hearing presentations from doctors and researchers.

According to Bennet, the tour was part of a push to simplify application and patent procedures at the FDA level. Streamlining the process and cutting red tape could bring innovation to the market more quickly and serve as an economic boon, Bennet said.

"We've drawn a lot of boxes around things like academic medicine," Bennet said. "No one does their research that way ... We don't want to see the research that's being done here die on the vine because we know that's where the jobs are going to come."

Specifically, Bennet said the current regulatory and tax codes can prove too complicated and outdated for modern research and innovation.

"It's not just bioscience. Aerospace, the clean energy economy -- all of these things are about our future," Bennet said. "The idea that we would somehow imagine that our tax code or our regulatory code, which was developed in the 19th and 20th century is going to be up to the test to allow us to compete ... is the wrong way of looking at it."

Bennet and Hamburg heard from researchers at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, as well as a presentation from University of Colorado Cancer Center Director Dan Theodorescu.

"It's too bad that some of the insights are coming when our resources are more limited," Hamburg said. "But that's all the more reason to work together. We're seeing such a huge disconnect between the investments in important aspects of research and what's coming down the pipeline in terms of real products for people."

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