Commerce Department Reopens Comments on PPE, Drug Importing

The Commerce Department, responding to requests for more time for comments, has reopened the file on a request for public comments on the condition of the public health industrial base and recommendations to ensure the industrial base provides essential medicines, medical countermeasures and critical inputs here in the U.S. Comments will be accepted until Jan. 15, 2021, it said in a notice published Dec. 30. Stakeholders' input is sought on the need to make more pharmaceutical ingredients, drugs or protective gear in the U.S., in preparation for a report on how to strengthen the public health industrial base (see 2012020029).