Reps. Davis, Tenney push for genetically targeted heart disease technologies

Reps. Don Davis (D-N.C.) and Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.) said Thursday the House is prepared to pass legislation supporting wider access to genetically targeted technologies (GTTs) that can treat conditions like heart disease, with the current challenge of getting it on the “front burner” in the Senate.

Appearing at The Hill’s “Protecting Patients from America’s No. 1 Killer” event, sponsored by the Partnership to Advance Cardiovascular Health (PACH), Davis and Tenney discussed their bill titled the Maintaining Investments in New Innovation (MINI) Act, which would legislate when genetically targeted technologies can be eligible for Medicare drug price negotiation.

The Alliance for Patient Access describes GTTs as “generally delivered via injection” and something that “clinicians treat patients once or twice a year in a medical office rather than patients needing to take daily medication at home.”

Explaining how improving access to GTTs would benefit constituents, Davis said, “At the end of the day, when you’re able to get advanced medications out there, patients are going to benefit.”

“They may not have to make as many visits. I mean, that’s huge especially in rural American areas like where I serve in eastern North Carolina,” he added.

If passed, the MINI Act would require that GTTs have market approval for at least 11 years before becoming eligible for Medicare negotiation. Per the Inflation Reduction Act, drugs must be on the market for at least seven years while biologics must be on the market for 11 years to be eligible for negotiation. Genetically targeted technologies are similar to biologics but fall under different federal regulations.

The Hill’s contributing editor Kathleen Koch noted critics might say this law would delay affordable access to GTTs.

“Right now, you’re seeing [an] incredible explosion in innovation technology, a lot of it because of AI, a lot of it because we have been able to invest,” Tenney said. “We don’t … want to discourage people that are going to be investing. That’s why we created the MINI Act just to say, let’s give them a time period where they know their investment can actually give them a chance to take some time to make that work and to get a return.”

When asked if there is support for the MINI Act in the Senate, Tenney quipped, “A little bit.”

“Right now, it is kind of the joke we have, our enemy is not the Democrats in the House. Our common enemy is the people in the Senate who — we get bills passed and then they get held up over there,” Tenney said. “But I think right now it’s not on the front burner. Our mission is to get it on the front burner, and that’s why I’m looking at various bills that are very meritorious, noncontroversial, bipartisan and getting them out.”