Biden administration to use Defense Production Act to tackle drug shortages

Pres­i­dent Joe Biden is di­rect­ing HHS to use the De­fense Pro­duc­tion Act to boost the pro­duc­tion of drugs in short­age, he wrote in a memo to the agency last week.

Penned to HHS on Dec. 27, Biden gives the agency the au­thor­i­ty to use the DPA to in­crease pro­duc­tion of es­sen­tial drugs and bi­o­log­ics, med­ical coun­ter­mea­sures and crit­i­cal drug in­gre­di­ents. The memo states that with­out pres­i­den­tial in­ter­ven­tion un­der the DPA, in­dus­try can­not rea­son­ably be ex­pect­ed to pro­duce enough prod­uct to meet the cur­rent need.

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