Jarrett: Expect more diversity in future Obama Cabinet picks

Senior Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett on Sunday predicted more minorities and women would be tapped for positions in the president’s Cabinet.

“His Cabinet, when he's finished — and he's far from finished — will have diversity, including women, including people of color,” said Jarrett in an interview with CNN.

“He believes he makes his best decisions when he is surrounded by people who have different perspectives and give him their best ideas,” she continued. “And so, one picture does not speak a thousand words, in this instance. I spent a lot of time in the Oval Office, and I'm in there with a great number of women whom he listens to, and whose counsel and advice he trusts greatly.”

The White House has faced scrutiny over an alleged lack of diversity among President Obama’s top advisers, prompted by a New York Times report earlier this month questioning the “all-male look” of Obama’s inner circle. A photo accompanying the report showed Obama consulting a number of white men. 

Those questions have intensified with Obama’s senior-most Cabinet nominations, including former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) for Defense secretary, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) for secretary of State and Chief of Staff Jack Lew for Treasury secretary.

Those nominations have come amid a number of high-profile second-term exits of female Cabinet members, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis.

In a press conference last week, Obama rejected charges that he had neglected diversity, saying that he was “proud that in the first four years, we had as diverse, if not a more diverse, White House and a Cabinet than any in history.”

Obama said his critics should “wait until they've seen all my appointments, who is in the White House staff and who is in my Cabinet, before they rush to judgment."

On Sunday, Jarrett said that the president had a strong track record of appointing women to key positions in his administration.

“The president has been surrounded by strong women throughout his entire life. Raised by a single mom, lived for a while with his grandmother, who was a great role model for him. Obviously, married to a very competent wife, and his first Cabinet reflected the diversity of our country,” said Jarrett. “He put women in charge of key initiatives, such as Nancy Ann DeParle, his deputy chief of staff, who helped craft the Affordable Care Act, and now Kathleen Sebelius is implementing it.”

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Number of new drugs picks up in Europe and U.S.

* EU agency sees more new drug applications in 2013

* U.S. new drug approvals running at eight-year high

* Encouraging signals for industry as patent losses peak

LONDON, Dec 18 (Reuters) - The number of new medicines approved or pending approval is on the rise on both sides of the Atlantic, painting an encouraging picture for the global drugs industry as it emerges from a wave of patent expiries.

European regulators said on Tuesday that they expect an increase in new drug applications to about 54 in 2013. In the United States, a total of 34 new drugs have been approved for sale so far in 2012 - the highest level in eight years.

The sector badly needs a pick-up in productivity as companies try to refill their medicine chests after a wave of patient expiries that have peaked this year, depriving leading U.S. and European drug companies of more than $30 billion of revenue.

"It bodes well," said Standard & Poor's (S&P) analyst Olaf Toelke, who predicts that strong pipelines will allow most large drugmakers to emerge unscathed from the spike in sales losses.

"It shows that companies are addressing the need to find new drugs to replace those facing patent expiration. They have done their homework and it looks as if the industry will be at least stable in future and not fall off the threatened patent cliff."

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), gatekeeper to the world's biggest pharmaceuticals market, still has just over a week to add more approvals to this year's tally - and there are signs that the number will increase further.

Three new products for leukaemia, anthrax and Cushing's disease from Ariad Pharmaceuticals, GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis were approved last Friday alone, and the FDA is scheduled to hand down decisions on a further four drugs before the end of the month.

FEWER GENERICS

A green light for all these would take the 2012 tally of new molecular entities (NMEs) approved by the agency's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research to 38 - two more than the 2004 total of 36.

The European Medicines Agency painted a different picture of improving productivity by announcing that its work programme for the year ahead included a forecast for 54 new drug applications, up from 52 in 2012, 48 in 2011 and 34 in 2010. These figures exclude medicines designated for "orphan", or rare, diseases.

Significantly, the London-based agency is also expecting a sharp drop in the number of applications from companies to sell generic versions of drugs, to 20 in 2013 from 39 in 2012, given the slowdown in patent expiries next year.

Major U.S. drug companies will lose a total of about $21 billion in revenue this year from lucrative medicines coming off patent, while the hit for European businesses is about $10 billion, according to S&P.

This year's expiries have included Sanofi and Bristol-Myers Squibb's heart drug Plavix and AstraZeneca's antipsychotic Seroquel.

Winning approval from regulators, however, is only part of the battle for drugmakers.

Investors will also be watching closely to see how the new drugs perform commercially once they reach the market, since securing payment for innovative medicines is an increasingly tough fight - especially in austerity-hit Europe.

An analysis by Deloitte and Thomson Reuters this month found that while new drug approvals were increasing, this was offset by lower expected revenues from many individual products.

(Editing by David Goodman)

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