The National Pork Producers Council praised Congress for recently approving legislation to reauthorize the Animal Drug User Fee Act (ADUFA) and to create the Animal Generic Drug User Fee Act (AGDUFA) and is urging the president to sign the bill into law. The Senate August 1 approved H.R. 6432 by unanimous consent; the House July 30 passed the bill on a voice vote.
The laws will require animal health companies to report to FDA by March 31 of each year certain data related to the distribution and export of animal health products. (Although individual company data will be kept confidential, FDA will publish an aggregate of it.) Some lawmakers had proposed that the drug firms and livestock producers publicly report such data as well as information on uses of animal health products and their geographic locations.
"This is a win for animal agriculture and represents the result of many hours of hard work from producers, veterinarians and the animal health industry," said NPPC Director of Science and Technology Dr. Jen Greiner. ADUFA has been beneficial to the swine industry in the past with the approval of four new medications and to small animal medicine with the approval of nine medications. NPPC appreciates the bipartisan efforts to help reauthorize ADUFA.