Latest News

Washington, DC– Congressman Brett Guthrie (KY-02), Vice Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Health Subcommittee, today applauded the passage of the 21^st Century Cures Act, a bipartisan legislative package that will accelerate medical innovation as well as update mental health programs and provide funding to help fight opioid abuse.

“The 21^st Century Cures Act will make will make it easier for the right treatments to be delivered to the right patients when they need it,” said Guthrie. “As Vice Chair of the Health Subcommittee, I have had the privilege over the past two years of watching this bill develop from a vague idea into an innovative game-changer. In the past two decades, science has made major medical advancements – it’s time for our policies to catch up to them. I urge the Senate to pass this important piece of legislation as soon as possible.”

The 21^st Century Cures Act will accelerate the discovery, development, and delivery of new treatments and cures for patients. It empowers scientists and patients to allow for more research into the 10,000 known diseases. The bill also modernizes the Food and Drug Administration approval process, making it easier for new treatments and drugs to reach patients faster.

The 21^st Century Cures Act is fully paid for and provides almost $5 billion in funding for the National Institutes of Health, with an emphasis on finding a cure for cancer, precision medicine, and research into treatments for neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s. It also provides $1 billion for state grant programs to fight opioid addiction.

Guthrie was involved in the two year process to develop the bill and championed several provisions of the 21^st Century Cures Act.  Among those items are provisions authorizing grants for the study of continuous manufacturing of drugs and biologics, implementing electronic visit verification in Medicaid to protect patients and taxpayers, and requiring guidance to be issued by the FDA that clarifies the process for approval of point-of-care diagnostic tests.

The 21^st Century Cures Act today passed the House by a vote of 392 to 26. Earlier today, Congressman Guthrie spoke on the House floor to urge colleagues to support the bill. Click hereto watch his remarks and see below for the full text.

“Mr. Speaker, all of us have families that come to our offices advocating for research or cures for diseases they’ve lost a parent or child from, or they have their child with them that has the disease. They’re just hoping for a move forward.

“Being on the Health Subcommittee, at least weekly, if not daily, innovators and entrepreneurs come to my office and talk about a new procedure, a new product, or something that’s innovative that will change the lives of these families, and they’re having trouble getting them through the system and getting them approved.

“It hurts families, like a family in Elizabethtown that has a son with a degenerative disease and they’re trying to beat the clock because they think there’s some kind of help out there. Or a friend of mine from Bowling Green whose son went through a diabetes trial, and the first time they got any sleep was when their kid was on this trial through the night, and then they call me because they’re crying saying they’re out of the trial and it’ll be a  year before they get it.

“Taking our entrepreneurs and our innovators and putting together these cures, it’s not getting their product to market – it’s changing dynamics of these families, families that are suffering. So our chairman and Ms. DeGette from Colorado put together this effort to move forward and I urge support for this bill because it will change families’ lives.”

###