Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Penn.) is keeping a close eye on the FDA.
Following the successful House and Senate passage on the latest iteration of the FDA user fee reauthorization act, which increased the fees that medical device and drug makers pay for product review in exchange for meeting certain performance goals, Pitts isn’t about to let the agency slack.
"We’re going to follow up with real oversight on the FDA as to what they’ve committed," Pitts told MassDevice.com. "We’re going to make sure they really deliver on what they’ve promised."
As chairman of the Health sub-committee of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, Pitts plays a strong role in budget authority over the watchdog agency, and he thinks the new FDA user fee reauthorization act is stronger than the last.
"It’s much better, I think we’ve got some real good reforms," he told us. "Frankly, we talked to industry and a got a lot of our cues from them."
That included measures to keep the U.S. on top in the med-tech arena by helping the FDA to "be more reasonable."
"We hate to see the flight of innovation and jobs to Europe," Pitts said, noting that medical device review times run about 4 years through the FDA. "We’ve got to reverse that."
The FDA user fee reauthorization act passed nearly unanimously in both houses of Congress last month, on a 387-5 vote in the House and on a 96-1 vote in the Senate.
"This legislation is going to save many lives," Pitts said on the House floor last week. "It’s going to help the U.S. continue to be the world leader for the pharmaceutical and medical device industries and mean a lot to our economy as well."
