Alexander: Biomedical innovation agenda could be “most important bill” this year

The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions’ bipartisan biomedical innovation agenda, if implemented, could “be the most important bill signed into law this year,” Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-TN) said on Wednesday.

“I do not know of another way this year to get support for the president’s Precision Medicine Initiative and cancer moonshot and a short-term surge of funding for the National Institutes of Health unless we act on this bill,” Alexander said. “This is the train most likely to get to the station and if we don’t succeed, we’ll lose those opportunities.”

The committee has spent more than a year working on a bipartisan basis to develop the pieces of legislation that will be necessary to form legislation that authorizes the president’s Precision Medicine and cancer moonshot initiatives. The work serves as a companion to the House-passed 21st Century Cures, H.R. 6.

The committee’s second of three markups, held on Wednesday, passed seven bipartisan bills meant to spur development for the treatments of Zika, rare diseases that afflict children, bioterror medical countermeasures, the field of combination products, and devices such as Fitbits or Apple watches that aid in keeping Americans healthy. The committee unanimously supported an additional seven bipartisan bills at a markup last month that will provide better pacemakers for citizens with heart conditions, better rehabilitation for stroke victims, more young researchers entering the medical field and better access to patient medical records for doctors.

“The momentum to deliver #CuresNow is real and today’s votes are an important step forward on the #Path2Cures,” House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) and Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO) said in a statement on Wednesday. “The bipartisan call for increased NIH funding mirrors the House’s efforts, and truly means we will find long-awaited cures years – if not decades – sooner. As Chairman Alexander said during today’s markup, there is no better time or vehicle to advance the administration’s Precision Medicine Initiative and cancer moon shot. To date, 13 bills have passed that will make a difference in the lives of countless patients and we look forward to continuing on this bipartisan track as we get closer to a vote on the Senate floor. Patients and their families are watching and waiting – let’s keep the momentum going.”

Going forward, Alexander said, the committee will continue its bipartisan work to find an agreement on short-term mandatory funding to boost high-priority research projects at the National Institutes of Health.

“Because of our budget deficit, we need to fund that new surge in mandatory funding by reducing existing mandatory funding,” Alexander said. “We can discuss these ideas in committee, but everything we’ve done in committee has had bipartisan support and we do not have a bipartisan consensus on how to do this.”