21st Century Cures Act

Floor Speech

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Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Chairman, America really is at its best when we are facing challenges, and so many of the challenges that we face today are in the area of health care and healthcare delivery.

Right now, we know we have over 10,000 identified diseases. We only have cures for 500 of those. This is why we need to work to focus the NIH and the FDA on a cures strategy and do this through the legislation that is before us today. Indeed, it is bipartisan, and it carries different components of bipartisan legislation.

One is the SOFTWARE Act that Representative Green and I have worked on. Mr. Chairman, getting bureaucracy out of the way and allowing innovation is the goal of the SOFTWARE Act. It would codify the manner in which the FDA approaches health IT, including the wonderful apps that we use to help make us healthy.

The FDA is the agency charged with ensuring the safety and efficacy of drugs and medical devices, but data is not a drug or a device, and it makes no sense to regulate it as such. That is why we bring forward the SOFTWARE Act. We support the bill and encourage others to support it.

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