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S. 4472119th CongressHealth
Accelerating Access to Critical Therapies for ALS Reauthorization Act of 2026
Sponsored by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) · 15 active : 7 Republicans, 8 Democrats
Latest action: Held at the desk.
Where it standsBefore the Senate6 senators score as swing votes
Passed Senate
- Senate: passedAug 4, 2026
- House: next
- President: not yet
Summary
, via Congress.govAccelerating Access to Critical Therapies for ALS Reauthorization Act of 2026
This bill reauthorizes through FY2031 and revises programs that support research and development of drugs and other therapies to address amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (also known as ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease) and other neurodegenerative diseases.
The bill reauthorizes
grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for scientific research on investigational drugs to prevent or treat ALS for individuals not otherwise eligible for clinical trials,
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grants from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for research and development of therapies to prevent and treat ALS and other neurodegenerative diseases, and
a Public-Private Partnership including the FDA and NIH that supports development and regulatory review of treatments for neurodegenerative diseases.
Also, the bill revises the NIH grants to require (1) the NIH, in considering grant renewal, to assess available information on the safety and efficacy of the investigational drugs; (2) grantees to promptly report available safety data from ongoing clinical trials; and (3) the NIH to determine the timeframe for enrollment in clinical trials for the investigational drugs.
Additionally, every five years, the FDA must publish a plan describing actions it will take over a five-year period to foster development of safe and effective drugs, and facilitate access to investigational drugs, for ALS and other rare neurodegenerative diseases. Each plan must include the FDA's previous actions and recommendations for improvements.
Finally, the Government Accountability Office and the Department of Health and Human Services must report on the impacts of these grants.
Committees and subjects
Committees
- Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions · SenateReported by · Markup by · Referred to
Subjects
- Department of Health and Human Services
- Drug therapy
- Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
- Government information and archives
- Health programs administration and funding
- Internet, web applications, social media
- Medical research
- National Institutes of Health (NIH)
- Neurological disorders
- Public-private cooperation
- Research administration and funding
How the Senate breaks down
- 6Swing 70–100
- 55Middle 30–70
- 39Entrenched 0–30
Members fall into . All 100 senators have enough data to score.
Key players in the Senate
Ranked by swing score, 0–100 · swing-v2, directional: only movement toward the other party counts, so members who sit further from the center than their party no longer score as swing votes.
Bars show each input from 0 to 100: ideology gap, scorecard gap, . is the seat’s partisan lean, and shows how much of the input data a score has.
Similar past votes, Senate
Earlier behind swing-v3’s inputLoading similar votes
Cosponsors
15 activeShow all 15 cosponsors
- Christopher A. Coons (D-DE)
- Alex Padilla (D-CA)
- Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)
- Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV)
- Susan M. Collins (R-ME)
- Jim Banks (R-IN)
- John R. Curtis (R-UT)
- Kirsten E. Gillibrand (D-NY)
- Margaret Wood Hassan (D-NH)
- Edward J. Markey (D-MA)
- Steve Daines (R-MT)
- David McCormick (R-PA)
- Jeff Merkley (D-OR)
- John Barrasso (R-WY)
- Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)
How the swing score works
Ideology gapHow far a member’s DW-NOMINATE voting score sits from their party’s median in the same chamber.
Scorecard gapHow far their Heritage Action and LCV ratings stray from their party’s average, using the groups’ votes on similar bills where available.
Cross-pressureHow strongly their district or state leans toward the other party, from our own computed partisan lean.
Similar votesHow often they voted against their own party on earlier roll calls about this bill or similar ones.
Committee bonusMembers of the committees handling the bill decide whether it moves, so they get a boost.
Cosponsor checkThe sponsor and active cosponsors have already committed, so they drop toward entrenched.
