Af­ter two years of ne­go­ti­a­tions, FDA gets its user fee pro­grams au­tho­rized through 2022

Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump signed the FDA Reau­tho­riza­tion Act of 2017 in­to law late Fri­day, qui­et­ly end­ing a two-year long process that un­til sev­er­al weeks ago threat­ened to dis­rupt agency op­er­a­tions.

Al­though the leg­is­la­tion was passed by both hous­es of Con­gress with over­whelm­ing bi­par­ti­san sup­port — Sen­a­tor Bernie Sanders was the on­ly reg­is­tered no vote — it faced a num­ber of threats, in­clud­ing the White House’s clear de­sire to fund the FDA en­tire­ly with user fees from the com­pa­nies the agency reg­u­lates and a sen­a­tor’s long stand­ing cru­sade to un­der­cut the agency with a sweep­ing new “right-to-try” di­rec­tive.

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.

SIGN UP LOG IN BECOME A PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER