Hey everyone,

Congress will soon be voting on the 21st Century Cures Act before taking it to the president's desk for signature. This act will provide more funding for medical research of cancer, rare diseases, and so much more. Largely because so many people contacted their elected officials, the House and Senate have now agreed to a common draft of the Act and plan to vote on it tomorrow in the House and soon thereafter in the Senate. It's important that we get this legislation passed and signed into law as soon as we can, since it contains so many provisions that will accelerate medical research. Otherwise, with a new congress getting underway in January, the draft legislation would go back to the drawing board for a whole new legislative cycle and might never make it back to the finish line.

If you're a Dollar in the US, you can show your support by contacting your representatives in the House or Senate today or tomorrow and let them know how important this bill is to patients and families who stand to benefit from the research that could be funded from this legislation.

If you want to reach out to your legislators, this link will help you find them and their contact info: http://salsa3.salsalabs.com/o/51076/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=19617

Before I go, here is some provisions from the bill that will help with medical research:

$4.8 billion over ten years for the NIH to fund the Precision Medicine Initiative, BRAIN Initiative, the Cancer Moonshot, as well as additional funding and flexibility for the FDA..

Extension of the Rare Pediatric Disease Priority Review Voucher(PRV) Program through September 2020, with an additional two years extension for products that received an application designation.

Streamlining of FDA review of genetically targeted and protein variant therapies for rare diseases.

Requirement for companies to publicly post their expanded access policies on their website.

Further expansion of the Patient-Focused Drug Development Initiative and requirements for the FDA to report on how patient experience data was used in regulatory review.

Creation of the National Neurological Conditions Surveillance System to better quantify the incidence and prevalence of neurological diseases, including rare neurological diseases.

I think that this is a perfect mission for the Dollars. We can make a big impact on the quality of life for so many patients suffering from diseases with no treatments or cures. Please, if you can, take the time to contact your rep.