21st Century Cures Act passes Senate; Obama says he'll sign
The bill earmarks $1.8 billion for Vice President Joe Biden's "cancer moonshot."
Vice President Joe Biden (Daniel Schwen)
By a wide margin, the U.S. Senate passed the 21st Century Cures Act on Wednesday, a medical funding bill that facilitates the development and approval of experimental treatments and overhauls federal policy on mental health. President Barack Obama has said that he will sign the bill.
The bill passed the Senate 95 to 5 after passing the House last week 392 to 26. The bill earmarks $4.8 billion in new funding for the National Institutes of Health, $1.8 billion of which is reserved for Vice President Joe Biden's "cancer moonshot," an effort to accelerate cancer research.
Earlier in the week, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, introduced a bill, later passed, which renamed the cancer research portion of the 21st Century Cures Act after Biden's son, Beau, who died in 2015 after battling a brain tumor. He was 46 years old.
Further provisions of the bill include $500 million in new funding for the Food and Drug Administration, helping the agency expedite its drug approval process; and $1 billion in grants to help states tackle opioid abuse.
While the bill gained wide bipartisan support, there were some critics, including progressives Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, and Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts. On Twitter, Warren praised certain aspects of the bill that she had supported, including one designed to protect the genetic privacy of patients, and the development of genetically targeted therapies for those with rare diseases.
But she decried the concessions made to the GOP in the bill, saying "Republicans concluded that bipartisan medical innovation in the #CuresAct would require a raft of giveaways to giant drug companies."
[Also: Vice President Joe Biden on cancer moonshot: Developers 'need to break down silos']
Sanders wrote on Twitter, "Why won't Republicans support Trump's position that we should lower drug prices by negotiating prices and re-importing prescription drugs?" The bill does not cap rapidly increasing drug prices.
Overall, though, the bill won wide support from Democrats, including Rep. Diana DeGette of Colorado and Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, who had negotiated provisions to boost research funding.
Obama said Wednesday he would sign the bill the moment it lands on his desk.
Twitter: @JELagasse
