The good news: The Biden Administration announced today that the United States was able to secure an additional 200 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines.

• This news builds on the successful work of Operation Warp Speed. Under President Trump’s leadership, the U.S. was able to develop two successful and effective vaccines to fight the virus in mere months.
• As Arthur Herman of the Hudson Institute put it, Operation Warp Speed “is the most remarkable achievement in modern medicine.”
• Despite shifting goalposts by the Biden Administration, the U.S. has been able to get more than 32 million people vaccinated thus far.

Under measures proposed by Ways and Means Republicans, vaccine development and distribution could be accelerated even further here in the U.S.

Ways and Means Republicans, led by Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH), introduced the Domestic Medical and Drug Manufacturing Tax Credit. This legislation lowers the tax rate on the income from the domestic manufacturing and sales of active pharmaceutical ingredients and medical countermeasures – giving manufacturers more immediate capital to invest in advanced manufacturing.

Why is this important? The Food and Drug Administration has said that modernizing manufacturing is crucial to support public health and prevent future pandemics.

Republicans put forth a three-pronged approach to achieve this goal.

• First: We must direct investment toward innovative, smaller firms.
• Second: We need to eliminate roadblocks for investors to finance these biotech companies.
• Third: We should make it easier for there to be greater and earlier investment in these life-saving cures.

At a Ways and Means Committee markup this week, Republicans offered this legislation as an amendment to President Biden’s proposed stimulus package. Democrats unanimously rejected it.

To learn more about our efforts to increase advanced medical manufacturing here in the U.S., CLICK HERE.