Dive Brief:
- The Senate's Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee moved Wednesday to pass five bipartisan bills that aim to foster the innovation of new medications and medical treatments.
- This was the committee's last of three sessions on medical innovation, with the goal of combining multiple small bills into a package to present to the Senate as a complement the House's 21st Century Cures bill as early as next week.
- The major issue on the Senate floor will be that of adding funding to the package for the National Institutes of Health, and possibly for the FDA, Morning Consult notes.
Dive Insight:
The legislation is a companion to the House’s 21st Century Cures Act. The House voted overwhelmingly in July to pass its FDA reform bill, which would speed up approvals of new drugs and devices and increase research funding.
The five bills passed Wednesday relate to a variety of matters around getting new medical treatments developed and approved. Three of the bills were sponsored by committee chairman Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and ranking member Patty Murray (D-WA).
However, without agreement on NIH funding, the Senate’s cures bill can’t proceed. The House bill included $8.75 billion for NIH, but much of the House-passed offsets were consumed in 2015 transportation bill. Alexander wants the Senate version’s offsets to come from other healthcare spending.
“I’m hopeful we can take this to the Senate floor, conference with the House, and send a bill to the president,” Alexander was
quoted by Morning Consult.
The bills aim to assist the FDA and NIH in attracting and retaining top talent; reducing the length of time it takes to create superbug treatments; supporting President Obama’s Precision Medicine Initiative, requiring the NIH to plan for diversity in research; and reducing the time NIH researchers must spend on administrative duties in order to facilitate more time for research.