Give Kids A Chance Act of 2024

Floor Speech

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Mr. BILIRAKIS. Mr. Speaker, I thank Dr. Bucshon, a great friend of mine who does an outstanding job on our committee, for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 3433, the Give Kids a Chance Act, by Representative McCaul. His legislation strengthens pathways for treatments and cures for children across the Nation.

The Give Kids a Chance Act would require that new studies of pediatric cancer trials focus on combination therapies rather than solely single-use drugs. This bill requires these pathways for children with cancer in cases where both the drugs are FDA approved and owned by the same company.

These combination products may help unlock new treatment options for pediatric cancers and help extend the lives of children battling a rare cancer.

I am proud to cosponsor this legislation. Furthermore, I am particularly glad to see that this comprehensive package contains provisions of two bills I co-lead, the Creating Hope Reauthorization Act and the RARE Act. These bills will support innovation for pediatric rare disease treatments and cures.

The Creating Hope Reauthorization Act will extend the FDA's rare pediatric priority review voucher program for another 5 years, through fiscal year 2029. This voucher serves as a critical and necessary incentive for innovators to invest in research and development of pediatric rare diseases.

Due to their extremely small patient populations, these diseases too often go unnoticed, unfortunately. However, the voucher program allows innovative rare disease companies to receive FDA priority review if they get an approval for a pediatric rare disease. These vouchers can then be used to expedite consideration of new treatments in the pipeline, or transferred or sold to another company to recoup investment losses.

This successful FDA incentive does not cost any taxpayer dollars and must be extended to continue the pipeline of treatments for children with rare diseases.

I was proud to lead the effort in the Energy and Commerce Committee with my good friend and colleague, Anna Eshoo. We are going to miss her. She is retiring, but hopefully, she will be around to give us some advice in the future.

Again, we have bipartisan agreement on this. It is so very important for our children.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in supporting H.R. 3433 off the floor today.

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