Luján Applauds Final House Passage of Bill Supporting Public Health Missions of FDA and NIH

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) applauds the House’s passage of his bipartisan legislation to increase the transfer authority for funding the Reagan-Udall Foundation for the Food and Drug Administration (Reagan-Udall Foundation) and the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) – each independent, non-profit organizations that perform critical work to support the public health missions of FDA and NIH, respectively. U.S. Representatives Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) and Richard Hudson (R-N.C.) were House cosponsors and U.S. Senators Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) were Senate cosponsors of the Supporting the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health and the Reagan-Udall Foundation for the Food and Drug Administration Act. Now, the bill goes to President Biden’s for his signature.

Under current law, NIH and FDA may transfer funding to their respective foundations, within statutory limits, but these limits have not increased since 2007. The increases in transfer authority will help advance collaborative innovation with the FNIH and Reagan-Udall Foundation to address cutting-edge regulatory science challenges, including advancing research on COVID-19.

“This bill and the critical research it supports will prepare the country to tackle the next public health crisis,” said Luján. “From Alzheimer’s to COVID-19 to cancer and beyond, the FNIH and Reagan-Udall Foundation have delivered groundbreaking innovation by creating cross-discipline coordination and partnership that complements and amplifies the work of the NIH and FDA. For example, FNIH acted early in supporting the NIH’s response by managing the Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines (ACTIV) partnership to coordinate the wide scale efforts across public and private sectors to develop COVID-19 vaccines and treatments. I applaud my House colleagues for passing my bill on a bipartisan basis, and I look forward to President Biden signing it into law.”  

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