HELP to examine drug, device development

The two leading senators on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee announced plans to review how drugs and medical devices are approved, with the goal improving access to medical innovation for patients.

Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the panel’s chairman and ranking member, respectively, said the bipartisan initiative would involve staff working groups and a series of hearings in March.

{mosads}”We want to modernize the way drugs and medical devices are discovered, developed, and approved,” Alexander said in a statement.

“America’s patients deserve a review process to match the cures and life-changing treatments that American scientists today are discovering.”

The effort will focus specifically on the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration, and it points to a continued level of bipartisan collaboration on the HELP Committee despite the change in power in the Senate, lawmakers said.

The plan appears to dovetail with the 21st Century Cures initiative in the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which produced legislation designed to speed up clinical trials and encourage drugmakers to focus on complex diseases.