On the recordMay 11, 2021
For the purpose of closing. Madam Speaker, it is so important that we have the Orphan Drug Act. We have so many people who have rare diseases come to our offices and visit us on Capitol Hill, as they should. Hopefully we will be able to do that again soon. It just touches your heart. Many of these diseases have so few people affected by it; but if it is you or your child or somebody in your family, it is devastating. We have all seen the power of the private marketplace to come in and produce these pharmaceuticals that make a difference. So we have to have provisions to allow these drugs to come into the marketplace and incentivize that private innovation moving forward. But when people use that in order to move forward, this loophole has to be closed. I am glad that it is here, and it is these things that we need to work on. It is really not specifically here; it is just maybe a slippery slope in other places as we move forward. I thank my friend from Pennsylvania for bringing this forward, and the Energy and Commerce Committee for addressing this, because we have to preserve orphan drug status for those afflicted by the rarest and the most devastating diseases. We also need to bring lower drug prices to Americans, and we can do that working together. Madam Speaker, I appreciate this being brought forward. I urge my colleagues to support this piece of legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.
