This is just over one hour. Hello and welcome i am editor at the hill, thank you for joining us for covid19 and a responsible rx supply chain, or Virtual Event looking at the resiliency of the Prescription Drug supply chain during a Global Pandemic. Id like to thank our sponsors the Healthcare Distribution Alliance for their support of todays program, the coronavirus pandemic has upended our lives and forced a new normal upon us, what accommodations can be made for lifestyle choices but little flexible lead to health care, patients with chronic disease and those most at risk from the coronavirus access to regular medication is in the choice and matter of life and death in a pandemic the Healthcare System and patients have changed their behaviors, as a consequence in concerns of drug availability and shortages, what are stakeholders doing to ensure the disruptions do not occur in collaboration between the public and the private sectors, what plans are being put in place for the distribution of this corona vaccine once it becomes available, we will discuss all of this and much more with the smartest minds in health policy, before we get underway he is entered a few housekeeping notes at the hill event and the comes special letters, the hill rx supply chain. Sibelius resources which provides strategic advice to companies, investors and nonprofits and is my go to person when it comes to issues of knowing what a smart Healthcare System looks like. So, great to see you. Let me ask you, to get to the point, you oversaw many of the institutions that we are now looking at today to help save this country whether its pushing the time curb, developing a vaccine, whether its on how you approve the various dimensions. What would you say is going well and what would you say has just been awful . Its good to see you. Thank you for including me in this program. I dont think that there is any question the socalled operation warp speed on a number of possible vaccine candidates early on pushed that pipeline and has accelerated the possibility of getting a vaccine for a brandnew coronavirus faster than people could have been dissipated and that will be beneficial to the United States and hopefully to the rest of the globe. That collaboration looks very good and the early investment makes sense. So the Pharma Companies are drilling down on the massive Clinical Trials and looking at the safety results and how competing to get to this starting line first so we could have a number of effective and safe vaccines in record time. The bad news is that at every point along the way this white house has undercut the public science, undercut confidence in the Public Health messages and by doing that may discourage a lot of americans from ever volunteering to get the vaccine and ever believing that it is safe and effective so that is really not helpful. Communication, strategies, clear effective scientific based communication from the start is part of any crisis and any recovery and tying the vaccine to his political election which hes done for months and months suggesting there will be an october surprise, an effective vaccine before the campaign, something coming out it makes people feel like its being rushed. That we are not on track for safety and effectiveness but on track for some kind of a political gimmick and nothing should be more harmful to the confidence we are going to need for a massive Vaccination Campaign and a two dose Vaccination Campaign so that has good points and bad points. In direct response we have seen much of the same. Public science which has evolved over time and scientists have learned more and corrected themselves undercut consistently by the white house who has a very different agenda in mind, not Public Health and safety, but getting the economy back running as quickly as possible regardless of the deaths. We have had a counterpoint in the United States and the clearest indication of that is Johns Hopkins in the fall of 2019 gave grades to countries around the world for the pandemic readiness not knowing what we were going to face. The United States was regarded as the best prepared country in the world and yet we have had the worst response for any developed country in the world. You were one of the stars in the new movie called totally under control that profiled the response managing everything from operation warp speed. Some heroes that pop out, some governors were securing ppe and part of the discussion was around the supply chain and whether americans can have confidence that there is an infrastructure dependable enough they can have confidence in regardless of the leadership and i wonder how you see that because you saw the states competing with one another before over masks and downs. I wonder when he vaccine rolls out well we have the confidence that it will be wellmanaged . We already have the confidence if we have a National Plan and i think that its clear the president doesnt want a National Plan. Hes pushed every issue on to the states and sometimes the private sector in a way that isnt transparent to anyone and puts burdens on states as a former governor as they cannot possibly achieve so ppe is a great example. Rather than the United States mobilizing efforts through the defense production act to make more stuff in america, to get it ready to go or to use the incredible purchasing power and previous global context to purchase ppe and then distribute it in a fair and equitable manner and use the logistics to make sure equipment and machinery is at the right place and right time and we had everything from a virtual inventory to where there were personnel. The federal government washed its hands of it and said its up to the state so states competed against one another and against their own health system. Ive heard so many stories about states ordering supplies only to have the federal government confiscate it at the border and put it into the stockpile and then have the United States say its not for the stockpile its for us whoever us is so we have had a totally misguided and appropriate response and we need a National Plan in place. We will only get that i would say with a new president whos made it very clear that he will have a National Plan. And for Vaccine Distribution and integration and communication we need that plan to start right away. People have to have confidence in the safety and security and beyond that we need some transparency. Where is the vaccine going, how will you b it be available, whos it first. That whole effort has been pushed. States are submitting plans but we need a National Strategy for how this is going to roll out and how we can have confidence. When the fda says we have a safe candidate that hasnt been pushed ahead, shoved ahead or the guidelines that have always been the Gold Standard in the world have not been shortened or rushed due to political pressures. I cannot even think of the number of Business Leaders and scientists ive talked to since the pandemic began. One of the interesting things while you solve the society worry about drugs, therapeutics et cetera, the other side is a lot of the companies beyond political control bent over backwards to make sure there were no shortages and supplies and asked whats the right way forward. In a few minutes i will have the representative on who passed legislation on strengthening americas Strategic National stockpile and again as somebody that has her view of what the private sector is doing and federal government needs to do, what are some of the parts of the skeletal structure we need to amp up rather than the National Plan but how do you look at the ecosystem and what do you think needs to be sure not . Its going to be important to do an after action report. We found we didnt have sufficient manufacturing capacity in the u. S. So we now have i think tripled the Production Capacity. Thats good news. I think putting back in place the red flag folks at the National Security and within the white house are going to be critical but we need to figure out what are the protective equipment supplies and gowns and gloves what makes sense and how we have Production Capacity to deal with when everybody in the world is trying to find equipment and supplies at the same time. I think we are going to need a renewed confidence in Public Private partnerships. Pharma has stepped up but what we know about the stockpiles particularly for therapeutics and vaccines is unless the government has a pot of money and says its worth your time to invest in the science and manufacture these drugs and bring them to development, if there isnt a willing buyer it doesnt happen. We are facing a possibility of Antimicrobial Resistance to antibiotics. We dont have a big pipeline of antibiotics in the country so that is an example where with a government pool of money that happened after 9 11 and we had resources for making sure america was safe and secure which means some of the supplies that will be developed are never used or put into action but you have them in place if something happens. We need to be willing to fund proactively and not reactively. On a scale of one to ten, ten being the worst and one being best, how bad was the administrations response so far to covid . I think its bad. The deaths we are seeing in the United States are unparalleled for a developed country with the resources that we have. A burden to the communities it is immoral we didnt move much more quickly and tell people the truth and really take the steps to secure the most vulnerable population. I think we are at about nine. Maybe we can recover some territory with Vaccine Development and distribution but theres no reason in the world we should have had this many deaths and now we have all these people dying of the virus. Its raging here and in communities that have almost no capacity to deal with it because there are no beds or equipment. There isnt the personnel. Im grateful every time we get a chance to talk but its also very sobering every time i talk with you so thank you for joining us today and helping us to launch our program. Thanks for having me. Our next guest believes stockpiling medical supplies made in the u. S. Is an issue of National Security. A democrat from michigan running for election right now joins me. I cant tell you how grateful just a week out from all this other stuff you have going on but i know that this is a priority for you and for the country. Point blank what is broken that needs to be fixed . A lot of my experience the worst of it in march and april came down to the fact things like medical supplies, pharmaceuticals, just major supply chains that help keep us safe were so outsourced. We couldnt get a hold of then when we needed them and our experience in the pentagon and the National Security world it kind of blew my mind while we have a preference for making things our military equipment, body armor we didnt have the same requirement on other things like medical supplies and pharmaceuticals. Obviously the stockpile we opened that up and a lot of it was expired here in michigan. We got a lot less than we were expecting so we have to make sure that theres a better way to stockpile equipment when we needed and then in general i think it combines kind of the National Security background with major american manufacturing. Here in michigan we have been saying if you outsource too far you will get caught with your pants down at some point and i feel like we did. If im haggling with a chinese man in the middle of the night for the 70s and mask something has gone wrong. Thats been the focus of the work since basically april. Where is your legislation now i mentioned strengthening the Strategic National stockpile. I talked with some other Industry Leaders in the pharmaceutical production. Theyve been talking about who can identify the top 100 most needed therapies and medicines that are out there and figure this out. Where does this stand now . Its a series of seven bills completely bipartisan, ten democrats, ten republicans built purposely bipartisan because these issues should be bipartisan. They passed the house in september and now we are in the negotiations to have them in the next package. This thing that theyve been struggling to negotiate. The bills are in there and my hope is once we get past the election we are able to get something done. Im frustrated we havent been able to before. And its something frankly we should be moving on now. The biggest part is this 500 Million Pilot Program on extra pharmaceutical lines. When we need to surge and go the American Government has an interest in being partners on the additional capacity so thats the part that im most excited about. Have you talked to the Industry Leaders and how do they feel in terms of their partnership and what they know is going to be a load of vaccines and therapeutics thats going to have to be deployed in every point in the country. Are you finding them to be robust partners or do you have concerns . We have one of these companies that smell sort of being at the ready for when their vaccine is identified they are ready to go and ramp up production in my district. But we have been talking with them and others. Everyone talks about the manufacturing more in the United States, but you have to make sure you are talking to the industry to find out what truly incentivizes people. You cant just decide from washington that you know its going to bring manufacturing back. We have such a globalized supply chain and ecosystem from all parts of the globe. I want to hear from our Business Leaders and i was in this great group called Business Executives for National Security. Theyve done an after action on our supply chain and i was one of the members of that commission that looked at it. Youve got to talk to them to figure out how to properly incentivize the United States. It can to be made up from washington. One of the things i want to talk about is your cia background. Your background as an analyst. I have been to talk earlier this week to the official who said he was pushed out of that job. I didnt realize, and a lot of people look back at the playbook developed on the shelf, they did a simulation. You did the simulations and the cia and exercises in october of 2019 that anticipated this kind of pandemic. It actually underscored the weaknesses and decisions is there any awareness that that simulation occurred highlighting many of these gaps among your colleagues and the need to fill them because i was astonished to hear the Trump Administration tn already had this experience in hand. They look at these scenarios and have a Homeland Security council at the white house. I know people that are working there and people that were focused on this. The difference between having folks in the system and then having it rise to the level of Senior Leaders where they are going to do something about it. I think it was this paralysis that came from and not wanting to accept the federal government was the best place to respond to these scenarios. This would have stretched any administration of any party. The fact they backed away from that leadership role meant they didnt seek out the expertise that might have been in the administration. What are the other critical supplies you think the nation needs and what would some of the partnerships in the sector look like from your perspective . Theres a certain capacity around Energy Storage that we depend on a lot of other countries for that we dont want to do without. A lot of technology around superconductors that were at risk having to depend on other countries. What we need, and i wrote this into the Defense Department budget through my role in the Armed Services committee is the identification of the very specific supply chains with National Security importance. Once we identify that list we can look at incentivizing more productions at home but weve got to agree upon that list and have a common understanding and be able to review it every few years. Certainly though Energy Storage is a big one that we would be loath to live without. I appreciate your insight and what you are doing to think through this ecosystem and how to be smarter than perhaps we have been. Im grateful for your time. Thanks for joining us for todays program. Thank you so much. The next guest has been a pharmacist for 30 years and thinks the coronavirus is the wakeup call America America neo bring back the pharmaceutical supply chain to the United States. Welcome congressman up for elect