As pressure mounts to take action on drug shortages, lawmakers seek to boost production in the US

A bi­par­ti­san group of sen­a­tors in­tro­duced leg­is­la­tion on Thurs­day that aims to bol­ster do­mes­tic gener­ic man­u­fac­tur­ing in an ef­fort to shore up stock­piles of key drugs as the coun­try con­tin­ues to face short­ages of crit­i­cal med­ica­tions like an­tibi­otics and chemother­a­pies.

The bill, called the RAPID Re­serve Act, would re­quire the De­part­ment of Health and Hu­man Ser­vices to dole out $500 mil­lion in awards for gener­ic drug man­u­fac­tur­ing to ei­ther US-based com­pa­nies or mem­ber coun­tries of the Or­ga­ni­za­tion for Eco­nom­ic Co-op­er­a­tion and De­vel­op­ment. Sen. Gary Pe­ters (D-MI), chair of the Sen­ate Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty and Gov­ern­men­tal Af­fairs Com­mit­tee, in­tro­duced the bill along­side Sens. Mar­sha Black­burn (R-TN) and Sher­rod Brown (D-OH).

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