Bill > SRes97

This Resolution expresses the Senate's view that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), a government agency responsible for protecting public health by ensuring the safety, efficacy, and security of human and veterinary drugs, should actively promote the use of abuse-deterrent formulations of drugs, particularly opioids. Abuse-deterrent formulations are designed to make it harder for people to misuse or abuse medications, for example, by making them difficult to crush, dissolve, or inject. The Senate believes that when a drug with abuse-deterrent features is available, the FDA should prevent the approval of generic versions that lack these protective features, as this would undermine the public health goals of developing such formulations. Furthermore, the Senate urges the FDA to require generic versions of existing abuse-deterrent drugs to have similar abuse-deterrent properties, building on the agency's acknowledged authority to do so. This is in response to years of encouragement from government bodies like the Office of National Drug Control Policy and the FDA itself for drug manufacturers to develop these safer formulations, which several companies have now done.