Cancer survivor Billy Tauzin, former congressman and now head of the pharmaceutical industry’s leading trade group, is passionate about promoting the biotech end of an industry that helped save his life a few years ago.

And as the former chairman of the House committee that oversees the drug industry, that’s been good news for local biopharma companies like Amgen Inc.

In town last week for an industry conference initiated by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Tauzin, president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, had high on his mind an array of legislative and regulatory proposals back in Washington D.C. that he believes could weaken incentives for innovative drug discovery, and adversely impact companies like one of this region’s largest employers.

Thousand Oaks-based Amgen, whose Chief Executive Kevin Sharer is PhRMA’s chairman this year, has been under fire on a number of fronts, from tougher Food & Drug Administration-required safety warnings on its top-selling anemia drugs Epogen and Aranesp, to efforts by legislators and regulators to cut Medicare reimbursement for those same products.

Last week, a Senate committee approved a pathway for generic drugmakers to begin competing with brand name players like Amgen. As a bone to the industry, the Senate version of the bill whose cosponsors include Hillary Clinton (D-New York) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) does give biotech companies an additional 12 years of patent protection following FDA approval before generics can market a cheaper version.

Of concern to Tauzin: the House version of the bill currently includes no such patent extension. He argues such protections are essential incentives for innovation. Biotech drugs in particular tend to eat up 10 to 15 years of their 20-year patent protection just gaining FDA approval, thus giving a company only a short time to get its investment back. Tauzin believes that a longer timeline could moderate prices and diffuse criticism of the industry.

He’s also wary of single-payer health proposals that could lock certain drugs out of the U.S. market. Tauzin notes that he likely would have died had he been living in the United Kingdom when he was diagnosed with cancer in 2004, because the drug that saved him, Genentech’s Avastin, still is not listed in that country’s government-regulated formulary.

“Innovation doesn’t happen in a vacuum,” said Tauzin. “Seventy percent of all new drugs are discovered in the United States. If we don’t have support from government, this country’s drug discovery industry could end up as weak as Europe’s.”

While Los Angeles’ biotech industry often plays second fiddle to better known hubs in Silicon Valley and San Diego, Tauzin notes that Los Angeles-Orange County is second only to Silicon Valley in the economic impact of its biomedical industry $1.5 billion according to a Milken Institute report.

“Of course, at $7.7 billion Silicon Valley is much farther ahead, but that need not be with the proper support here,” Tauzin said.