U.S. Senate — U.S. Senator Steve Daines joined his colleagues in sending a letter to the Biden Administration urging against the implementation of a drug-pricing scheme selected by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that would stifle innovation and discourage research for new cures.
“By bringing groundbreaking therapies to patients years before these products could otherwise reach the market, the FDA’s Accelerated Approval Program (AAP) has saved countless lives while upholding strong safeguards and standards. The Accelerating Clinical Evidence Model recently announced by the Biden Administration, unfortunately, risks undermining or even reversing this trend, triggering access gaps for seniors, as well as imposing cuts on frontline providers…If proposed and finalized as described, this profound policy shift would inevitably chill incentives for leveraging the FDA’s game-changing expedited regulatory avenue, which has served patients with life-threatening diseases for decades. Later approvals and access delays would follow…We all share the goal of improving prescription drug access and affordability, but this model represents a step in the opposite direction for seniors. We strongly encourage you not to pursue it any further,” the letter reads.
Senator Daines is joined by Senators Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), John Barrasso (R-Wyoming), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee), Ted Budd (R-North Carolina), Shelley Moore Capito (R-West Virginia), Susan Collins (R-Maine), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Kevin Cramer (R-North Dakota), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Mississippi), James Lankford (R-Oklahoma), Roger Marshall (R-Kansas), Jim Risch (R-Idaho), Marco Rubio (R-Florida), Rick Scott (R-Florida), Tim Scott (R-South Carolina), Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina), Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi).
Read the full letter HERE.
Contact: Matt Lloyd, Rachel Dumke, Blake Kernen