Work is underway on the second version of 21st Century Cures on Capitol Hill. That’s the landmark law put forth by Congressman Fred Upton that helps to speed up the availability of medication and medical devices, and was the last major legislation signed by former President Obama.
“Now three years later, we’re looking to update that,” says the St. Joseph Republican. “We’ve begun the listing stage. We’ve not introduced a bill yet. But particularly when we see a breakthrough drug, something that may be the real answer, we want to see what can we further do to get it approved and into the market even faster.”
The new legislation is called “Cures 2.0.” Upton recently spoke to a company which is developing a drug for stage four pancreatic cancer that has had a survival rate in initial trials of more than 70%, a substantial improvement from current treatment for the cancer, which only has about a 5% survival rate. He says this is the kind of innovation that needs to be encouraged.
