Budget funds Critical Path, pandemic flu, biodefense

President Bush's fiscal 2007 FDA budget request for the first time proposes funding FDA's Critical Path initiative and levying a new fee for re-inspecting manufacturing facilities. The request, which was released Monday, also seeks increased money for pandemic influenza preparedness and drug safety.

The $5.9 million requested for Critical Path will fund six full-time employees and three projects: trials to validate positron emission tomography (PET) imaging as a surrogate endpoint for cancer drugs; development of the preliminary components of a simulation model of how drug eluting stents behave; and work on an electrocardiogram (ECG) data warehouse (see BioCentury, Nov. 14, 2005). The White House quashed FDA's attempts to include Critical Path funding in the previous two budgets. ...