Upton Discusses Nonpartisan Effort He is Leading to Find “21st Century Cures”

WASHINGTON, DC — Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee Fred Upton (MI-6) appeared before a breakfast meeting of The Ripon Society yesterday morning, delivering a speech in which he not only talked about his panel’s 2014 accomplishments, but one of his top priorities in the coming year.

“This last year we passed better than 90 bills out of our committee on the floor,” Upton stated. “Forty of them were signed into law. Of the remaining 51, two-thirds of them passed by better than a two-thirds vote — some by voice. I thought it was a pretty productive year for us. And now we have to govern. That is really why we are all here. To me, this is my moment. This is why I am here.”

“As we set up the agenda for this year and for this Congress, we’re excited that we have seven new, really good Members on our side. I’ve got to say, I’m pretty impressed by the Democrats, too. I’m looking forward to working with Frank Pallone on a host of things, one of which is 21st Century Cures.”

“21st Century Cures” refers to an initiative that Upton launched last spring with Democratic Rep. Diana DeGette of Colorado. The goal of the initiative, he said, is to not only accelerate the discovery, development, and delivery of promising new treatments and cures for patients around America, but to maintain America’s standing as the biomedical innovation capital of the world. To that end, Upton noted, he and DeGette have led an effort over the past year to listen and learn as much as they can about the drug development process and what can be done to bring new cures and treatments to market in as fast, safe and efficient way as possible.

“We had a dozen or so roundtables,” Upton stated, looking back over the past 10 months. “We had subcommittee meetings. We also went around the country and had roundtables, as well. We then began to collect some of this information as to how we could expedite the approval of some of these drugs and devices to really make a difference. It is just alarming when you talk to some of the smaller firms and the larger firms as well. They have gone over to Europe. Venture capital has dropped by over 50 percent for U.S. design. So we said, ‘Let’s get it back here.’ We want the jobs back here as well. But what can we do to not only streamline the process and obviously still make it safe, but find cures for literally 10,000 diseases — of which we currently have cures for only 500.”

Upton noted that the result of this almost-year-long effort to listen and gather more information on the issue was a 400-page #Cures2015 Discussion Document. Released on January 27, the Discussion Document lays out many of the ideas for reform that have been submitted to the Committee since last spring, including ideas from both Republicans and Democrats. It also paves the way for the House of Representatives to consider the issue later this year.

“We are on track to have this bill on the floor prior to Memorial Day,” the Michigan lawmaker stated. “We will mark it up in subcommittee and full committee. We have dates that are figured into the process. This is going to make a difference for every American. We want to solve these diseases and put some of them away like we have done in the past, like with polio. It will really be exciting.”

It will also, Upton remarked, be nonpartisan.

“The President came out in the State of the Union Address and talked about precision medicine,” he observed. “We said, ‘Terrific, it is in.’ We are not going to give him a reason to say ‘no.’ So it is in. We are going to have that. We have reached out. And I have to say, HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell has been outstanding. It is going to be exciting to see this thing get done. Somebody said last week that, ‘This is not bipartisan — it is nonpartisan.’ And that is the way we are going to keep it.”

The Ripon Society is a public policy organization that was founded in 1962 and takes its name from the town where the Republican Party was born in 1854 – Ripon, Wisconsin. One of the main goals of The Ripon Society is to promote the ideas and principles that have made America great and contributed to the GOP’s success. These ideas include keeping our nation secure, keeping taxes low and having a federal government that is smaller, smarter and more accountable to the people.