Heidi Alexander: “The Senator from North Carolina, Senator Burr, and I are here to speak about an important and exciting development that…”

“The Senator from North Carolina, Senator Burr, and I are here to speak about an important and exciting development that is about to occur in our Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. What we are talking about and we will describe in our remarks today is a report entitled ``Innovation for Healthier Americans'' which will launch a bipartisan effort to look at how Congress can help to get cutting-edge treatments, drugs, and devices to America's patients more quickly while still preserving this Nation's gold standard for safety and quality. This report and the actions we hope to take will affect virtually every American. I am especially glad today to be here with the Senator from North Carolina. While there are a number of Senators on this body who worked hard on these issues--which in our government are usually dealt with by the Food and Drug Administration and by the National Institutes of Health--no one has been more effective, no one has worked harder, and no one has had more foresight and vision on these issues than Richard Burr, the Senator from North Carolina. The report today is substantially his work product, and he will be deeply involved in the next year as we work with Senator Murray, our Democratic friends, and with President Obama to try to bring this to a result. In 2013, Dr.…”