21st Century Cures Act

21st Century Cures Act

Other short titles	Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Reform Act of 2016 Increasing Choice, Access, and Quality in Health Care for Americans Act
Long title	An Act to accelerate the discovery, development, and delivery of 21st century cures, and for other purposes.
Enacted by	the 114th United States Congress
Citations
Public law	Pub. L. 114–255 (text) (PDF)
Legislative history
Introduced in the House as H.R. 34 by Suzanne Bonamici (D–OR) on January 6, 2015 Committee consideration by House Science, Space, and Technology and Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Passed the House on January 7, 2015 (voice vote) Passed the Senate on October 6, 2016 (unanimous consent) with amendment House agreed to Senate amendment on November 30, 2016 (392–26) with further amendment Senate agreed to House amendment on December 7, 2016 (94-5) Signed into law by President Barack Obama on December 13, 2016

The 21st Century Cures Act is a United States law enacted by the 114th United States Congress in December 2016 and then signed into law on December 13, 2016. It authorized $6.3 billion in funding, mostly for the National Institutes of Health.^[1] The act was supported especially by large pharmaceutical manufacturers and was opposed especially by some consumer organizations.^[2]

The approval of drugs and devices would be streamlined, according to supporters, and treatments would reach the market more quickly. The argument made by opponents was that it would allow the marketing of riskier or less effective treatments by allowing the approval of drugs and devices on the basis of flimsier evidence, bypassing randomized, controlled trials.^[3]

The bill incorporated the Helping Families In Mental Health Crisis Act, first introduced by then-Congressman Tim Murphy, R-Pa., which increased the availability of psychiatric hospital beds and established a new assistant secretary for mental health and substance use disorders.^[4][5]