WASHINGTON–U.S. Senators Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) and Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.) sent a letter on Wednesday to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra urging the Department to take steps to strengthen the United States’ domestic supply chain of critical health supplies. The senators laid out policies, including incentives for providers to purchase U.S.-produced products and enforcement of existing rules on compatibility of foreign made products, to support and protect vulnerable domestic medical supply chains.

“We write to express our concern regarding ensuring the sustainability of a resilient domestic supply chain of critical health care products – such as devices for vaccine and life-saving medicine delivery, diagnostic tests, and others – in order to meet public health needs in times of emergency,” the senators wrote. “As we learned during the COVID-19 pandemic, relying on health care products produced outside the United States puts our recovery efforts and public health at risk. Specifically, we urge you to leverage relevant agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to support domestic manufacturing of critical health care products so that we can both securely and quickly deliver health care in a time of emergency or in the event of an international security conflict.”

The senators concluded: “We urge you to move swiftly using your existing authorities to support the domestic supply chain of critical medical supplies, and stand ready to work with you and provide the support you and your department need to deliver on this key health care and national security issue.”

Full text of the letter is available here and below.

Dear Secretary Becerra,

We write to express our concern regarding ensuring the sustainability of a resilient domestic supply chain of critical health care products – such as devices for vaccine and life-saving medicine delivery, diagnostic tests, and others – in order to meet public health needs in times of emergency. As we learned during the COVID-19 pandemic, relying on health care products produced outside the United States puts our recovery efforts and public health at risk. Specifically, we urge you to leverage relevant agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to support domestic manufacturing of critical health care products so that we can both securely and quickly deliver health care in a time of emergency or in the event of an international security conflict.

Today, medical supply manufacturing is increasingly global, reinforcing the vital importance of preserving vulnerable domestic supply chain security for continued patient access. While many key medical products are already produced in the United States, support for maintaining and increasing domestic manufacturing is critical. For these reasons, we urge HHS to consider the following policies to ensure critical domestic medical supply capacity:

  1. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services should explore policies that support domestically produced critical health care products by incentivizing providers to purchase, when available, domestically produced products.  
  2. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) should enforce its existing rules regarding compatibility of foreign made products with their domestically produced versions.
  3. FDA should regularly inspect foreign manufacturing facilities to ensure safe, effective, and high quality essential medical products.
  4. FDA should communicate clearly to health care providers about the need to report quality issues and urge medical supply end user purchasers to consider where products are produced.
  5. The Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR) should continue to support domestically-produced medical countermeasures by investing in domestic capacity to manufacture critical health care products. ASPR should also explore ways to support the market for these products by deploying a variety of stockpiling methods, including vendor managed inventory strategies and bulk purchases.

Thank you for your attention to this important matter.  We urge you to move swiftly using your existing authorities to support the domestic supply chain of critical medical supplies, and stand ready to work with you and provide the support you and your department need to deliver on this key health care and national security issue.

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