Since our last Public Policy Update, the Governor’s Proposed Detailed Budget for FY2025 has been made available. For the next several weeks, the Legislature will be focused on holding hearings to consider the FY2025 budget.

To read the Governor’s Detailed FY2025 Budget, click here.

As the Legislature begins to move towards budget hearings, a few notable bills have made progress since our last Public Policy Update:

• A1825 (Conaway/Verrelli) - Establishes certain guidelines for health insurance carriers concerning step therapy protocols.
• A variety of Patient advocacy groups, representatives of physicians throughout the State and BioNJ provided support for this bill.
• At the time of this update, this bipartisan bill has two prime sponsors and 23 co-sponsors.
• To listen to a recording of this bill being heard by the Assembly Health Committee on March 14, click here (begins at 4:10).
• A3972 (Freiman/Drulis/Speight) - Makes certain changes to calculation of minimum loss ratio requirements for health benefits plans in individual and small employer markets.
• A3939 (Stanley/Speight/Reynolds-Jackson) - Mandates access to periodic cancer screening examinations for professional firefighters not enrolled in SHBP, but who are eligible for SHBP by virtue of public employment.
• AJR120 (Conaway) - Designates first full week of May of each year as "Tardive Dyskinesia Awareness Week" in New Jersey.
• This bill was passed by the Assembly unanimously on March 18.
• S1965 (Vitale/Singer) - Regulates provision of pharmaceutical services in long-term care facilities.
• S2168 (Ruiz/Pou) - Provides tuition fee waiver apprenticeship courses.
• S2306 (Beach) - "New Jersey Works Act"; permits businesses to create pre-employment training programs in partnership with nonprofit organizations or educational institutions; provides tax credit to businesses that provide financial assistance to pre-employment training programs; makes appropriation.
• S2822 (Lagana) - Revises workers' compensation law to increase contingency attorney fee cap in contingency case from 20 percent to 25 percent. "This act shall take effect immediately and shall apply to all claims pending on or after the date of enactment." This bill revises the workers’ compensation law to increase the cap in contingency fee matters from 20 percent to 25 percent. Attorneys for injured workers are often compensated on a contingency fee basis, and the original cap of 20 percent does not take into account additional duties that workers’ compensation attorneys are required to handle since the cap’s establishment.

Please contact Ian McLaughlin, VP of Government Affairs at BioNJ, with any thoughts regarding the above bills at IMcLaughlin@BioNJ.org.

Over the weekend, New Jersey Attorney General, Matt Platkin, conveyed that the office considers the State’s current ballot design, which provides certain candidates with “the line” or “county line”— resulting in what is widely considered to be an electoral advantage — to be unconstitutional. The Attorney General’s office indicated that they will not defend this ballot design in a lawsuit that has been brought by Rep. Andy Kim (D-NJ). Rep. Kim is seeking a preliminary injunction to eliminate the county line prior to the primary election in June.

To read the Attorney General’s legal filing, click here.

For coverage of these developments in POLITICO, click here.

Today, Congressman Gottheimer announced the “Securing Equal Access to Research, Care, and Health”, or SEARCH Act. The Congressman, who is a member of the Rare Disease Caucus, notes the progress that needs to be made to address inequalities between men and women in research, clinical trials and awareness.

The SEARCH Act would:

• Require the National Institutes of Health, or NIH, to produce an action plan within 180 days to highlight the rare disease and health complications that uniquely impact women.
• There are many diseases that disproportionately impact women and are often swept under the research and funding mat. 
• Fund recruitment campaigns for women in NIH clinical research trials for rare diseases by increasing advertising at hospitals, doctors’ offices, health centers and healthcare clinics. This can have a direct and immediate impact on helping Jersey families. 
• Require the CDC and HHS to increase the number of women in federal bleeding disorder programs that provide funding for research, surveillance, prevention and services through public awareness campaigns.
• Create a task force between the HHS, NIH, FDA, CMS and the private sector, including hospitals and labs in New Jersey, to produce a report on the rare diseases that disproportionately impact women, helping ensure more funding goes toward diseases and conditions that impact women.

For a press release from Rep. Gottheimer on the SEARCH Act, click here.

For coverage of the SEARCH Act in NJ Spotlight News, click here.

Last week, a study conducted by researchers at Stanford Law School and Arizona State University was published that examines the details of March-In Rights as stipulated by the Bayh-Dole Act, as well as whether exploiting March-In in an attempt to reduce the costs that Patients face would truly accomplish that goal.

To read the study, click here.

Additionally, Vital Transformation published a study focused on March-In at the end of last year. Some of the study’s findings include:

• Funding by the life sciences sector for FDA-approved medications from 2011-2020 was $44.3 billion, compared to the $276 million the U.S. government contributed to patented drugs that are subject to the Bayh-Dole act.
• 92% of the therapies in our cohort have no mechanism of action or composition of matter patents with a government interest statement or federally funded co-development program in connection to them.
• 99% of the therapies in the study’s cohort cannot be Marched-In upon, as the key patents studied do not cover the entire asset’s intellectual property. There are only 5 out of 361 pharmaceutical products in which all available MoA and CoM patents include a government interest statement and could be subject to March-In Rights.

To explore the study by Vital Transformation, click here.

Last week, the Chair of the Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), penned a letter addressed to the members of the Committee to reaffirm a commitment to enact “meaningful pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) reforms this Congress.”

To read the letter, click here.

On March 8, the House passed H.R. 2799, the “Expanding Access to Capital Act of 2023”, by a party-line vote. This bill would confront some of the regulatory burdens that small and emerging companies face, and incorporates elements of additional bills that contribute various opportunities to further facilitate the ability for this community of companies to access capital.

As many Patient populations in New Jersey and beyond struggle to access the medicines they need, it is critical that policymakers consider Patient perspectives to make informed decisions about treatment and care. To empower advocates and Patients to raise their voice to support treatment access and medical innovation, BioNJ has created an educational guide around ways to join the conversation and best practices for engaging with policymakers, regulators and the media. Please share this new tool with your Patient Advocacy Organizations to use this guide and join BioNJ in advocating for the advancement of policies that prioritize better Patient health outcomes.

On Monday, March 18, President Biden issued an Executive Order (EO) focused on “transforming women’s health research and improving women’s lives all across America.” The EO calls for an investment of $12 billion in new funding for women’s health research.

To read the Executive Order, click here.

Last week, the New Jersey Business & Industry Association (NJBIA) released its 2024 Regional Business Climate Analysis, and the assessment determined that New Jersey continues to be last in the region by a wide margin in terms of business taxes and cost competitiveness.

To read NJBIA’s Regional Business Climate Report, click here.

BioNJ is the voice of New Jersey’s life sciences sector in Trenton and Washington. BioNJ’s Public Policy Support Series sponsorship opportunities are now available for 2024. Help ensure BioNJ continues to deliver our message of improved Patient access and enhanced innovation through a Public Policy Support Series Sponsorship.  

Click here for more information.

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