Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., is touting his proposed legislation aimed at shifting pharmaceutical production away from China.
The bill, the AMERICAN DRUGS Act, would create a strong incentive for companies to invest in domestic pharmaceutical production, Scott’s office said in a statement.
According to the statement, "about 90% of drugs dispensed at U.S. pharmacies are generic drugs that overwhelmingly come from Communist China and India.
"The AMERICAN DRUGS Act seeks to fix this problem by leveraging the buying power of the federal government and requiring federal health programs to purchase American-manufactured generic drugs, if there are two or more American manufacturers of a generic drug."
And Scott said: “During COVID we learned a hard lesson — our medical supply chain relies heavily on Communist China for critical health products like PPE and medicine. It was a wake-up call to bring jobs back home and reignite American pharmaceutical manufacturing and why I’m fighting to pass the American Drugs Act. Americans can’t trust Communist China and can’t allow any reliance on Xi’s evil regime for life-saving medicine.”
The bill would require the Food and Drug Administration to notify agencies when there are two domestic manufacturers of a generic drug.
It would also mandate that the FDA review the first two domestically manufactured generic drugs on an expedited basis, and require that require Medicare, Medicaid, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Department of Defense/TRICARE purchase American generic drugs when there are two domestic manufacturers of a drug.
Reuters reported in July that China's Commerce Minister, Wang Wentao, informed foreign pharmaceuticals firms that they can expect "more development opportunities.” The announcement came as representatives from 12 companies attended a meeting with Mr. Wentao, the statement said.