The 130th ASTA annual meeting gave attendees an opportunity to receive an update on the progress of the Accord initiative that is a joint effort of ASTA with the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO). “The Accord is an industry-led framework that is meant to address situations when biotech events go off patent and how we maintain the regulatory approvals worldwide for those events,” Bernice Slutsky, Senior Vice President for Domestic and International Policy for ASTA, said. Accord includes two major agreements, the Generic Event Marketability and Access Agreement (GEMAA) and the Data Use and Compensation Agreement (DUCA).
The update provided at ASTA’s annual meeting informed ASTA members that the GEMAA had been completed and open for signatures and currently has 10 signatures. The DUCA is scheduled to be completed and opened by the end of the year. “The DUCA is a larger agreement. It is meant to address some of the more complicated regulatory issues associated with stacked products,” Slutsky said.
According to Slutsky, the framework will hopefully ensure that farmers and stakeholders will be able to continue to trade their products uninterrupted as the biotechnology events go off patent.
Listen to an interview with Slutsky conducted by Meghan Grebner, Brownfield Ag News, here: Interview with Bernice Slutsky