[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 128 (Thursday, August 3, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1618]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                     TRIBUTE TO THE LATE LEW ENGMAN

                                 ______


                          HON. HENRY A. WAXMAN

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, August 3, 1995
  Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Lew Engman. 
Lew died on July 12 of this year at the age of 59. His sudden and 
premature death saddened all of his friends and associates who knew and 
worked with Lew over the years.
  Lew was an honorable and honest man who was a pleasure to deal with. 
Whether or not you had a difference of views, you could depend on him 
to be straightforward, fair-minded, and true to his word. And a 
difference in view never translated into personal enmity or 
unpleasantness.
  At the time of his death, Lew was president of the Generic 
Pharmaceutical Industry Association. Previously, when I first got to 
know him in the early 1980's, he was president of the sometimes rival 
Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association, representing the industry's 
research firms. That Lew could head both associations, first one then 
the other, yet never be caught in contradiction or inconsistency, says 
a lot about the integrity with which he went about everything he did. 
In each case, he managed to stay totally loyal to his clients, and 
totally dependable as a man of his word.
  I got to know Lew during the negotiations that led to passage of the 
1984 Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act. In 
securing support for that act, we had to balance the research-based 
drug companies' need for an adequate patent term with the goal of the 
generic drug industry to be on the market and able to compete as soon 
as those patents expired, with all the benefits that could bring to the 
public.
  The issue was complicated, and the players fractious. Lew Engman put 
his name on the line to seal the compromise, approved by his companies, 
that made a bill possible. And when later some of his members broke 
ranks, he stuck to his word. His refusal to break his promise to 
Senator Hatch and me cost him his job, a considerable irony in view of 
the fact that the patent-restoration half of the compromise which he 
worked so skillfully to obtain might never have occurred without his 
deft guidance.
  In the end, passage of the 1984 Waxman-Hatch Act was a testament to 
Lew Engman's conviction that the best form of legislation can achieve 
the aims of private interests while serving the public interest as 
well.
  Lew of course had achieved a lot long before I knew him. An antitrust 
lawyer and economist by training, he had served in the Nixon and Ford 
administrations, as general counsel to the President's special 
assistant for consumer affairs, on the White House Domestic Council 
staff, then as Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission from 1973 to 
1976. In the latter position, Lew was one of the first Government 
officials to note that some Federal agencies had become servants of the 
industries they regulated, and to call for some deregulation where 
appropriate.
  I won't try to list all of Lew's achievements. Suffice it to note 
that two decades ago, Time magazine picked him among the country's 
young leaders to watch, and Lew proved the pick a good one. It saddens 
me that we will watch him no more; at just 59 and full of energy, he 
was far too young to die.


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