Cathy Betz

Cathy Betz, vice president of government affairs for Wolters Kluwer Health, the Conshohocken-based arm of the global health and life-sciences information company, expects big changes - eventually - for the country and regions such as Philadelphia, where insurers, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies constitute an outsize share of the economy.

Question: What do you perceive as the biggest potential changes for the drug industry from Barack Obama's election and Democratic gains in Congress?

Answer: We're looking at some big changes. Both presidential candidates had health-care-reform plans with substantial price tags attached. But [because of] the current economic slowdown and the war and other spending that will make big demands on the budget, we think sweeping health-care reform is unlikely until the second part of this presidential term. There are some issues that I think Congress and the president can move on, including pay for performance, which links medical reimbursement to high-quality outcomes, and comparative effectiveness, which looks at how various therapies compare to each other.

Q: How might this work?

A: We know that today, only a small fraction of medical practices are supported by evidence. The president and Congress could do something like establish a Comparative Effectiveness Institute that would do research that would allow payers of health care and the public to make evidence-based decisions.

Q: What changes to you expect to see at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration? There's speculation whether a new FDA commissioner is likely to be tougher on approving new drugs, which could hurt profits in the pharmaceutical industry.

A: I don't see an FDA commissioner coming on board for months. I think there's going to be a very thorough vetting process because it's a key position.

Q: Do you think the new president and Congress are likely to allow government programs, such as Medicare, to negotiate drug prices?

A: Both Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain campaigned for that, so I think that's likely. My read is that the focus will be on beefing up enforcement in the meantime.