{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.tuberville.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/tuberville-discusses-ways-to-ensure-america-continues-leading-in-biotech-innovation/", "Tuberville\u00a0Discusses Ways to Ensure America Continues Leading in Biotech Innovation", "2025-10-29", "2025", "2025-10", "Republican", "Senate", "AL", "Tommy Tuberville", "T000278", "www.tuberville.senate.gov", "tuberville", "https://www.tuberville.senate.gov/press-releases/", "scraper", "WASHINGTON \u2013 Today, U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) spoke with Lowell Schiller, Nonresident Senior Scholar at the USC Schaeffer Institute, John Crowley, President and CEO of Biotechnology Innovation Organization, and Josh Makower, Yock Family Professor of Medicine and of Bioengineering at Stanford University, during a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee hearing about the future of biotech.\n\nRead Sen. Tuberville\u2019s remarks below or on YouTube or Rumble.\n\nTUBERVILLE: \u201cGood morning. Mr. Schiller, following President Trump\u2019s Domestic Manufacturing Executive Order that FDA launched\u2014the pre-check program to support U.S. drug manufacturing\u2014the program offers more frequent communication at key development stages and simplifies some manufacturing information required in applications. How can the FDA use pre-check to improve inspections, encourage more domestic pharmaceutical manufacturing?\u201d\n\nSCHILLER: \u201cThank you for the question, Coach. The program has a lot of potential. Some of the challenges around investment in domestic manufacturing goes to a degree of uncertainty about how FDA\u2019s regulations will apply to those facilities. And so having earlier more frequent interactions with the agency through that process can help enormously. There\u2019s other things that the Agency can be doing as well, things like updating manufacturing regulations to accommodate more advanced manufacturing techniques. The regulations were written for conventional older techniques, so updating them to take into account use of AI, use of continuous manufacturing would be incredibly helpful.\u201d\n\nTUBERVILLE: \u201cThank you. Mr. Crowley, [the] Hudson Alpha Institute in Biotechnology in my state of Huntsville is a global leader in genomics. In precision medicine in 2008, it had generated over $3.5 billion economic impact in my state, 45 companies it supports, 2,000 high-paying jobs has attracted more than $300 million in competitive research funding. Hudson Alpha acts as an incubator for biotechnology research and development that helps researchers move their ideas from lab to product development. NASA has been involved in space genomics. It\u2019s helped with cancer and heart disease risks. What are the institutes like Hudson Alpha doing right and how can we continue to encourage more similar efforts?\u201d\n\nCROWLEY: \u201cSenator, Coach, thank you for the question. You bring up a very important point and this is how medicines are made. If you look last year, nearly three quarters of all medicines approved by the FDA came [and] originated from startup biotech companies. Over time, well, more than half of all medicines come from these small businesses, these incubators of research. When we look at what it takes to make newer and better medicines, it\u2019s an entire ecosystem. It\u2019s what we call this virtuous circle of innovation grounded in our great academic universities or institutions like in Alabama, oftentimes funded and partnered with the important research that goes on at the National Institutes of Health. And that foundational research is what oftentimes spurs our startup companies. And so many times over and over again, it\u2019s a great technology, a disease where there\u2019s an unmet need. There are entrepreneurs, people giving angel money investments, startup capital. There are economic development funds in many of our states, such as in Alabama, to support these startup companies. And also too, having these clusters in so many\u2014and really in each of your states\u2014where innovators, entrepreneurs can come together, where there\u2019s lab space provided, where they\u2019re in proximity to academic research. Oftentimes, our startup companies, the founders\u2014scientific founders\u2014have joint appointments at local universities, state universities, and our startup companies. This is what\u2019s so uniquely American. Biotechnology is only a 49-year-old industry. Our very first company, Genentech, was founded by a scientist at the University of California, San Francisco, and a venture capitalist as well. This happens in every state. It happens in Alabama. And as you go along that virtuous circle of innovation, it takes this community to small companies, it takes our contract research organizations, our contract manufacturers, providers of capital, oftentimes Wall Street ultimately driving private capital to these incredibly risky, incredibly expensive, and incredibly important ventures. So again, I commend the state of Alabama and what they\u2019re doing to promote research, science, and development. This is the heart and soul of biotechnology, and it\u2019s what we need to strengthen and continue.\u201d\n\nTUBERVILLE: \u201cThank you. Mr. Makower, we talked a lot about the United States\u2019 history of [being a] global leader in biotechnology. We held that title for decades and we want to keep it for generations to come. Could you explain how America built and sustained this dominance? And what targeted strategies we can pursue to maintain it?\u201d\n\nMAKOWER: \u201cAbsolutely. Thank you for the question, Senator. Most importantly, we need to remove unnecessary delays. Efficiency through the process is absolutely key as most of these innovations are coming as John Crowley mentioned from small companies. Small companies that rely on venture capital and a very short timeline to be able to achieve their goals. So, by improving the process and shortening it, allowing it still to be as rigorous, but removing inefficiencies, that\u2019s one of the primary ways we can do that.\u201d\n\nTUBERVILLE: \u201cThank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.\u201d\n\nSenator Tommy Tuberville represents Alabama in the United States Senate and is a member of the Senate Armed Services, Agriculture, Veterans\u2019 Affairs, HELP and Aging Committees.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T19:32:54Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.tuberville.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/tuberville-discusses-ways-to-ensure-america-continues-leading-in-biotech-innovation/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.4438237994909286, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}