Senate Approves Additional FDA Funding

Washington, DC (May 22)-The US Senate approved a measure (HR 2642) that would provide the US Food and Drug Administration with $275 million in additional funding under a supplemental appropriations bill. The measure now goes before the House.

Earlier this month, FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach outlined in a letter to Arlen Specter, ranking member of the Senate Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Regulated Agencies, the agency's immediate needs as part of discussions for a supplemental budget request. The $275-million request included $100 million for drug, medical device, and biologics safety, $125 million for food protection, and $50 million for modernizing FDA’s science and workforce.

FDA’s request for an additional $100 million in drug-safety funding would allow for 120 more foreign inspections and 575 more domestic inspections. It would also support additional measures for risk-based inspection and compliance. These measures include improvements to laboratory infrastructure for rapid analysis of product and ingredient content, increasing import exams and sample/laboratory analysis, improvements in IT infrastructure, and allowing FDA to expand globally.