I also was pleased to see the implementation of a bill that I worked on with Senators Burr and Hatch that created a breakthrough therapy designation for drugs that have shown dramatic results early in the approval process.

I believe there should be an avenue for patients to inform the FDA of their opinions about what might be considered for breakthrough.

As we sit here today, we face income inequality that is greater than it has been since 1928 in this country.

If we do not change what we are doing as a country, the gap is only going to get a lot worse.

I visited a number of Colorado patients who are receiving breakthrough therapies, and I can tell you firsthand that it has truly made a lifesaving difference for many who tell me that their dream is only to live a normal life.

I think as we see the FDA exercising its muscles around this one part of the pipeline, my hope is that... we're going to be able to see it across the FDA.

if we do not figure out how to educate our kids better, and if we do not figure out how to recouple job growth and wage growth to economic growth, we are not going to recognize ourselves in the middle of the 21st century, and this is what…

Senator Murkowski puts it very eloquently. She says it is time to apply the 'even Steven' rule: the same thing that you do for the NRA is what you do for the Sierra Club.

What is embedded here is really a fight between the future and the past.

At long last.

I just do not believe it is appropriate for this committee or for the United States Senate to take action until the bipartisan investigation... is completed.