Friends Applauds Senate for FDA User Fee Bill Passage; Urges President Trump to Quickly Sign Into Law
Washington, DC – August 3, 2017 – Friends of Cancer Research (Friends) applauds the Senate for voting overwhelmingly (94-1) today to pass the FDA Reauthorization Act of 2017 (H.R. 2430). The bill will now go to President Trump to be signed into law.
“We are glad to see the Senate putting partisan politics aside for the sake of patients by quickly passing this bill,” said Friends’ President & CEO Jeff Allen. “FDA user fees are critical for FDA to be able to efficiently and effectively review new therapies and without this bill’s passage a significant number of staffers, who are vital to the agency’s mission, would need to be let go. This would hamper the agency’s ability to maintain its gold standard of excellence for delivering treatments to patients in a quick, safe, and effective manner. We urge President Trump to sign the bill into law without hesitation.”
H.R. 2430 is a five-year reauthorization of the FDA’s user fee programs, which accounts for approximately half of FDA’s budget – funding the agency’s drug and medical device reviews. If the President does not sign this bill into law, the current user fee program will expire September 30th, forcing the agency to dramatically cut its workforce.
About Friends of Cancer Research
Friends of Cancer Research (Friends) drives collaboration among partners from every healthcare sector to power advances in science, policy and regulation that speed lifesaving treatments to patients. For more information, please visit www.focr.org.
