Hatch Statement on Committee Passage of Stem Cell Research Reauthorization

Statement

Senator Orrin Hatch, the senior Republican in the United States Senate, and member and former chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee issued the following statement after the committee passed the Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research Reauthorization Act of 2015, which he sponsored.

"I am pleased the HELP Committee has passed this important, life-saving bill, and I thank Senators Reed, Burr, and Franken for joining me as cosponsors of the legislation. This reauthorization will advance the important work of the bone marrow and cord blood programs to promote new discoveries within the fields of cellular therapy and regenerative medicine. Enacting this bill will also reaffirm the commitment that Congress made three decades ago to help patients with blood cancers and other life-threatening diseases by increasing access to life-saving transplants."

The Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research Reauthorization Act of 2015 will reauthorize for another five years both the C.W. Bill Young Cell Transplantation Program -- known simply as the Program - and the National Cord Blood Inventory (NCBI). The Program and the NCBI provide access to life-saving treatments for serious conditions and disease such as leukemia, lymphoma, immunodeficiency diseases, sickle cell anemia, and certain metabolic diseases. Hatch has sponsored the bill twice previously in 2010 and 2005. The 2005 law created the National Cord Blood Inventory.

Source