AHI Supports Reagan-Udall Foundation Report on Modernizing the Center for Veterinary Medicine

June 25, 2025

Statement by Martha Scott Poindexter, AHI CEO

The Reagan-Udall Foundation Report entitled “Transforming Animal Health in the US for the 21st Century” makes a compelling case for modernizing the work and authorities of the Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM). The report also makes several specific regulatory and legislative suggestions to accomplish the actions, which AHI wholeheartedly supports.

As the report points out, this modernization is necessary if the Trump Administration is to succeed in returning innovation, jobs, and drug manufacturing to the United States. We share the vision of making the U.S. the very best place in the world to research, develop, review, and manufacture products to keep animals healthy, and implementation of the goals in this report will achieve that vision.

Many of the recommendations can be implemented now and would have an immediate impact.  For instance, reducing the burdensome requirements to submit all raw data, increasing use of mathematical modeling and other simulation methods, and increasing utilization of foreign studies and aggregate data already approved by other competent regulatory authorities would spur innovation immediately by reducing the time and cost of bringing new therapies to market.

We share the expert panel’s vision of using the 21st Centuries Cures Act as a model for potential reform at CVM.  Given the interconnectedness of animal and human health, increased attention to and investment in controlling emerging zoonotic disease is critical. We look forward to working with CVM and with Congress to propose legislative ideas to spur innovation by modernizing the CVM approval process.

We thank the Reagan-Udall Foundation and the expert panel for this comprehensive and thoughtful report.

Time is of the essence. For the sake of America’s food producers, veterinarians, and pet owners who need innovative products to protect animal health, AHI is ready to get to work to make these needed changes.