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July 11, 2015
Dear friends,
Great news. Yesterday, the House of Representatives voted to reauthorize the Creating Hope Act when the House passed the 21st Century Cures Act, H.R. 6.
We want to thank Chairman Upton, Congresswoman DeGette and their colleagues for their leadership on 21st Century Cures. 21st Century Cures Act will also increase funding for medical research and innovation at the NIH and FDA, strengthen compassionate use with the Andrea Sloan Compassionate Use Reform and Enhancement (CURE) Act, support the National Pediatric Research Network Act and further rare disease drug development in the OPEN Act.
We want to extend a very special expression of appreciation to Congressman Butterfield, Congressman McCaul, and their staff, Saul Fernandez and Andy Taylor, respectively for their leadership in the Creating Hope Act reauthorization. This victory is theirs.
The Creating Hope Act has wildly exceeded expectations in providing incentives for companies to develop drugs for kids with cancer and other life threatening illnesses. Sanofi recently purchased a Creating Hope Act priority review voucher for $245 million and three new drugs for seriously ill kids have come to market, including Unituxin by United Therapeutics for a pediatric cancer.
We look forward to working with the Senate on the reauthorization of the Creating Hope Act and on the Kids Innovative Drugs Initiative which is designed to increase access to drugs for pediatric cancer research. In that regard, we also look forward to engaging pediatric oncologists to help them access drugs for their own preclinical and clinical research.
Warmest regards,
Nancy Goodman and the Kids v Cancer Team
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