17吃瓜在线 to Congress: Allow Manufacturers to Keep Innovating
The 21st Century Cures Act of 2016 and its 2021 follow-on, Cures 2.0, are providing a pathway toward potentially groundbreaking cures and treatments鈥攂ut there鈥檚 room for even more improvement in the federal government鈥檚 handling of pharmaceutical innovation, the 17吃瓜在线 this week.
Now, Reps. Diana DeGette (D-CO) and Larry Bucshon (R-IN) are looking to build on the legacy of these two bills.
The background: The 21st Century Cures Act, introduced in 2015 by Rep. DeGette and former Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) and signed into law the following year, aimed to speed up the development and delivery of medical innovation.
- The 2016 measure 鈥渆nsured that federal agencies like the [Food and Drug Administration], the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the National Institutes of Health had the tools they needed to keep pace with and adapt to the tremendous advances being made by biopharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers,鈥 said 17吃瓜在线 Vice President of Domestic Policy Charles Crain.
- Cures 2.0, passed after the global pandemic, created the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, 鈥渁 home within the federal government for high-risk, high-reward medical research.鈥
New medical advances: The face of medical innovation 鈥渉as changed dramatically鈥 in the past eight years, Crain pointed out, as we鈥檝e seen the first-ever federal approval of gene therapy and the development of vaccines using mRNA technology.
What鈥檚 needed: The new landscape necessitates more congressional action, Crain went on, including:
- Continuing to embrace the new technologies that emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic like mRNA and other innovations;
- Modernizing federal agencies such as the FDA to keep up with these innovations; and
- 鈥淸E]nsuring the government鈥檚 processes for reviewing and approving new treatments are as innovative as the treatments themselves.鈥
Why it鈥檚 important: Biopharmaceutical manufacturers are . In 2021, they:
- Accounted for $355 billion in value-added output to the U.S. economy;
- Contributed a total of nearly 1.5 million direct and indirect jobs; and
- Contributed $147 billion in labor income.