White House announces actions to address supply chain vulnerabilities

The Department of Health and Human Services will establish a public-private consortium to increase U.S. production of essential medicines and active pharmaceutical ingredients, the White House announced today. The consortium will initially focus on 50-100 critical drugs from the Food and Drug Administration’s essential medicines list, and commit an initial $60 million to develop novel technologies to manufacture active ingredients domestically.   
 
President Biden in February directed federal agencies to review and recommend actions to address vulnerabilities in the supply chains for active pharmaceutical ingredients, essential minerals, semiconductors and large capacity batteries. The HHS actions are among the recommendations included in a new White House report based on those reviews, which also address supply vulnerabilities in those other sectors.