Keynote Speaker: Abigail Caplovitz Field, "Strong Medicine Needed: How Out-of-Control Drug Marketers Endanger Patients, and What States Can Do About It."
Abigail Field leads New Jersey PIRG's consumer program and its legislative watchdog function. Prior to joining NJPIRG, Abigail's various jobs included practicing corporate law in NYC for three years and working as an Environmental Consultant in Connecticut . She graduated with honors from NYU Law School in 2001. Her talk will address out of control marketing of prescription drugs. She is the author of the report "Turning Medicine into Snake Oil" which we highly recommend. Check it out here.

Rethinking University Intellectual Property Policies and Prescription Drug Research
Jeffrey Light, founder and Executive Director of Patients not Patents, Inc. will introduce a new subject for legislative action. Public universities and research institutes are receiving substantial income based on licensing of taxpayer-funded research, particularly in the biomedical field and becoming increasingly dependent on deals with corporations. Who are the winners and losers, and are lax conflict-of-interest policies affecting the interests of consumers in obtaining affordable prescription drugs and health care? And what can legislators do about it?

Prescription Confidentiality and Data Mining: What can states do about it? Rep. Cindy Rosenwald, author of New Hampshire 's law prohibiting use of prescription information for drug marketing
Sean Flynn, NLARx Counsel, on the status of the industry lawsuit challenging New Hampshire 's law. NLARx is an amicus, with AARP, PAL and the NH Medical Society, defending the New Hampshire prescription confidentiality law in court.

Legal Update - PBMs and Controlling Price-Gouging
Sean Flynn will provide a status report on litigation challenging the District of Columbia 's law that provides a legal remedy for unconscionable pricing of medicines and the lawsuits challenging the Maine and D.C. PBM laws. NLARx is an amicus in the unconscionable pricing case, where the industry is relying on patent law to try to limit what states can do to make medicines more affordable.

State Legislative Round-up - What's on Tap for 2007
NLARx Executive Director Sharon Treat will give an update on legislative activity in the states, and we will have a Legislators' Roundtable. Issues likely to be discussed include PBM transparency, Medicare Part D, and advertising & marketing.

Trade Agreements and Prescription Drug Affordability
Legislative members of the Working Group on Prescription Drugs & Trade and Peter Riggs, Director of the Forum on Democracy & Trade, will give an update on the status of US free trade agreements and negotiations, and how states are making sure these do not interfere with state programs for affordable prescription drugs.