DeGette: When we did 21st Century Cures it was a three-year process and really was a sweeping revision of the way we do biomedical research at the [National Institutes of Health], and then drug and device approval at FDA. It’s been wildly successful. Many people think we got the covid vaccine much more quickly than we otherwise would have because some of the provisions in 21st Century Cures, but as with any big piece of legislation, we realized there were still some improvements. One of the improvements is streamlining and improving the way drugs and devices are funded at [Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services] because of course you can approve it, but if you can’t pay for it, then it’s no use to the patients. Another big issue is how do we use big data to help us push research in rare diseases and in cancer. A third thing we wanted to look at is what we can do for vaccine approval and speeding vaccines up, not just covid, but of course other vaccines. And of course, last but not least, we’re very excited about the White House initiative for ARPA-H, which will use unique ways to try to find the cures to the thorniest issues we have.
