Pallone and Sanders Investigate FDA Commissioner’s National Priority Voucher Program
November 24, 2025
Health Committee Leaders Voice Concern New Pilot Appears Designed to Enable Corruption & Reward Trump Allies with Faster Drug Approval
House Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) and Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee Ranking Member Bernie Sanders (I-VT) wrote to Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Martin Makary last week to demand answers on the recently announced Commissioner’s National Priority Voucher (CNPV) pilot program—under which the FDA has doled out awards worth millions of dollars to companies without congressional authorization.
"We have significant concerns that this program will enable corruption by creating a new, lucrative gift for drugmakers and allies politically favored by President Trump," Pallone and Sanders wrote in their letter to Makary. "This program could undermine public confidence in FDA’s decisions and raise safety concerns, including rushed reviews by an agency whose staff have been decimated by this administration’s cuts."
Pallone and Sanders also voiced their concerns about the potential impacts of a rushed and unaccountable drug review process at a dismantled FDA on Americans’ health and safety, particularly one with "absurdly short timelines" that are inconsistent with those in the user fee agreements.
"We are concerned reviewers may feel pressured to take harmful shortcuts in order to meet an unreasonable review timeline, which ultimately could waste taxpayer funds and harm Americans... The demands of a faster review timeline with limited staff could create safety oversights and pressure to cut corners. The Center for Drug Evaluation and Research reported a net loss of over 1,000 staff in fiscal year (FY) 2025 and the agency is already experiencing delays in reviewing applications," Pallone and Sanders continued.
The lawmakers requested documents and answers to a series of questions from Commissioner Makary by December 11, 2025, including:
- All agreements and communications between FDA and each CNPV recipient;
- Specifics on the development of CNPV priority areas;
- Details on any existing relationship between CNPV recipients and drugmakers signed onto Trump’s Most Favored Nation agreement;
- FDA’s planned oversight of potential conflicts-of-interests between reviewers and CNPV recipients; and
- Estimated impacts of expedited drug review timeline on patient safety.
"Your creation of a priority review program with potentially massive financial benefits to pharmaceutical companies without any demonstrable transparency or criteria for awarding the vouchers demands scrutiny," Pallone and Sanders concluded.
The full letter is available HERE.
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Issues:Health