Today, February 17th, 2022, Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-02), Bill Foster (IL-11), Mark Green (TN-07), and Kim Schrier (WA-08) led a bipartisan group of eight Members of Congress in calling for greater federal efforts to research and develop COVID-19 combination therapies, or drug “cocktails”.
In a letter to Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci, and National Institutes of Health Acting Director Dr. Lawrence Tabak, the Members wrote:
“Decades of experience combating HIV and other viruses have shown that combination therapy, or ‘cocktails’ of multiple therapeutics, is frequently the most effective way to combat viruses. [...]
“However, the pharmaceutical companies that developed [the existing COVID-19 treatments] do not have a natural commercial incentive to formulate and test therapeutic cocktails. Similarly, generic drugs that are off patent do not have a natural advocate for inclusion into cocktails. Therefore, it is necessary for the federal government to aggressively step in and run – or at the very least, fund – these trials.”
The Members asked HHS and NIH to:
- Focus COVID-19 treatment trials and other internal efforts on testing and optimizing combination therapies.
- Facilitate developmental drug availability to trials investigating and developing combination therapy.
Original source can be found here
