Long, House Pass Monumental Medical Innovation Bill

     WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Representative Billy Long joined the House of Representatives Friday to pass H.R. 6, the 21st Century Cures Act, 344-77, with overwhelming bipartisan support.

     The 21st Century Cures Act would unleash American medical potential with a number of provisions aiming to reduce bureaucratic barriers to research and development and to provide incentives for American development of drugs and treatments for diseases.

     “We have seen massive growth in medical breakthroughs in the 21st Century.  These discoveries have great potential to increase the quality of life of Americans living with incurable or untreatable diseases.  The long, drawn out government approval process hurts our potential to get these innovations through the federal approval process and on to patients.  With only 500 of the known 10,000 diseases having treatments, Americans cannot afford delayed access for proven health care solutions.  Many American lives could depend on 21st Century Cures to heal American health science’s affliction red tape and uncertainty.  It is past time to move us into this new century,” Long said.

     21st Century Cures would empower the private sector with resources and access to partnerships with federal entities, such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and give a booster shot to the potential for American medical discovery.  It establishes a five-year, fully offset innovation fund within the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and NIH to aid research of diseases.

     A streamlined FDA review process for breakthrough medical devices and treatments would be established to move groundbreaking treatments to patients with ease.  The bill would increase patient-centered research to allow FDA to incorporate patient experiences and needs when reviewing new treatments, and it would establish an accelerated approval pathway for potentially major discoveries.

     “Innovation led to the American solution to Polio in the 1950s, eradicating it in the U.S with the availability of the vaccine.  We did that more than 60 years ago.  Imagine what could be done today to treat or cure deadly diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s. My colleagues and I passed this incredibly important legislation to help millions of American families, such as my own, whose lives have been changed by disease.  I have great faith that this bill will allow doctors to deliver more good news of hope of treatments for diagnoses and prolong a happy, high quality life for their patients,” Long said.

     Long is also a lead sponsor of language within 21st Century Cures Act that would improve critical and reliable communication about health care economic and clinical data between drug manufacturers, payers and providers.  It would allow manufacturers, which have the most in-depth sophisticated information about their product, to share the data with certain health care professionals.  This would give doctors opportunity to better understand which drugs work best for certain patients, ensuring the most effective and economical treatments for specific patients while opening informed competition in the pharmaceutical market and driving innovation for better drugs and successful treatments.