Pharma associations strongly support Senate bill on FDA User Fees sequestration exemptions

In the USA last week, Mark Pryor (Democrat, Arkansas), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration and Related Agencies, and Senators Roy Blunt, (Republican, Missouri), Daniel Coats (Rep, Indian), Al Franken (Dem, Minnesota), and Jerry Moran (Rep, Kansas) introduced S 1413 to exempt future Food and Drug Administration (FDA) user fees from sequestration.

This bill was assigned to a congressional committee on July 31, 2013, which will consider it before possibly sending it on to the House or Senate as a whole. A similar bill, HR 2725, was introduced in the US House of Representatives last month (The Pharma Letter July 22) by Representatives Leonard Lance (Rep, New Jersey), Anna Eshoo (Dem, California), Mike Rogers (Rep, Minnesota) and Doris Matsui (Dem, California).

Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), Generic Pharmaceutical Association (GPhA), and Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), trade associations representing biopharmaceutical, plus two groups representing and medical device companies, praised Senators Pryor, Blunt, Coats, Franken, and Moran for their efforts to prevent the sequestration of future FDA user fees and urged Congress to find a bipartisan solution for releasing sequestered FY13 user fees as Congress continues its work on the fiscal year 2014 appropriations process.