Eshoo’s Bill to Keep Biomedical Hub Outside NIH Advances (1)

A bill to set up a new biomedical innovation hub as an independent HHS agency advanced Wednesday in a House health panel amid an ongoing debate over where the entity should sit.

Lawmakers approved the measure (H.R. 5585) by a voice vote during the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Health’s markup. The bill would authorize the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, or ARPA-H, which aims to deliver medical breakthroughs in the same way that existing federal programs helped pave the way for the internet and GPS.

“This has a very broad vision that is so ...