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On October 30, 2020 the FDA published a list of essential medicines, medical countermeasures, and critical inputs as required by President Trump’s August 2020 Executive Order on Ensuring Essential Medicines, Medical Countermeasures, and Critical Inputs Are Made in the United States (Executive Order 13944), which required the U.S. government to purchase “essential” medicines and medical supplies produced domestically, rather than abroad. We previously wrote about this Executive Order in August (available here), expecting that once the list was issued, government agencies would begin implementing the “Buy American” priorities for these products and materials. The FDA has identified around 227 drugs and 96 devices, along with their respective critical inputs or active ingredients, that the FDA believes “are medically necessary to have available at all times” for the public health. Agencies across the federal government should now begin making non-competitive awards “to the maximum extent permitted by law,” for drugs and medical supplies on this list that are produced in the United States. We have yet to see how agencies will implement these requirements in regulations or class deviations, but publication of this list is an important first step in implementing the rest of the “Buy American” priorities in the Executive Order.
Continue Reading “Buy American” Update: FDA Issues List Of Essential Medicines Required By Executive Order

On August 6, 2020, President Trump signed the “Executive Order on Ensuring Essential Medicines, Medical Countermeasures, and Critical Inputs Are Made in the United States,” requiring, among other things, the U.S. government to purchase “essential” medicines and medical supplies produced domestically, rather than abroad. Citing a need to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign suppliers, the Order sets forth several new requirements aimed at establishing reliable, long-term domestic production of essential drugs and devices, including their component parts. To be clear, this is a tall order: the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will need to assemble a list of critical supplies and medicines; agencies will need to assess ways to secure the supply chain for both equipment and medicines; the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will need to consider how it can accelerate domestic manufacturing requests; the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) and the Department of Defense (DOD) will need to re-negotiate the terms of international agreements; the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) may (or may not) be exempted; and – lest it go without saying – everyone will have to update their regulations. While this “Buy American” requirement seems to take effect as soon as the FDA issues its list of critical materials, the Order may leave intact (at least temporarily) some exceptions, which may allow companies time to examine and adjust their supply chains. Over the longer term, most required agency actions are ordered to be realized within 90-180 days, but the inevitable regulatory updates will lag (far?) behind. For now, we find ourselves in a bit of a Twilight Zone – “the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and … between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge” – forced to guess which parts of this new Order are real and immediate, and which will leave us stuck in a “darker dimension.”
Continue Reading “Buy American” in the Twilight Zone: Executive Order Strengthening the U.S. Public Health Industrial Base