The bill, which would carry out many recommendations from the National Academy of Sciences, is likely to become law. It appears broadly acceptable to the House, which is working on its own version of the legislation, and is unlikely to be vetoed by President Bush. The administration has not actively opposed the measure, although it says the F.D.A. already has all the regulatory authority it needs. Within the agency itself, officials have been divided about whether they have the power needed to do their job.

The bill is widely seen as “must pass” legislation because it renews authority for the government to collect fees from drug companies to speed the review of their products. Without action by Congress, the authority would expire Sept. 30.

Billy Tauzin, president of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the main trade group for brand-name drug companies, applauded passage of the bill, saying it “will preserve and even strengthen the F.D.A.’s ability to do its job.”

Drug company executives succeeded in their efforts to block a provision of the bill that would have legalized imports of lower-priced medicines from Canada. And they were happy that the final Senate version of the measure sidestepped a multibillion-dollar question: how to give consumers access to lower-cost copies of biotechnology drugs that now cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. But lawmakers from both parties said they intended to create a procedure for federal approval of such copycat drugs, sometimes called generic biologics.

Work on the bill began long before Democrats took control of Congress. At a time when bills often pass or fail on party-line votes, the Senate drug bill was a triumph of bipartisan cooperation. Republicans were full partners in drafting it.