2021 Legislative Agenda

Improve the Health of New Yorkers

1. Strengthen the Public Health Infrastructure

• Convene a Public Health System Work Group to make recommendations to improve the state’s public health system.
• Establish a COVID 19 Research and Data Sharing Collaborative to support contact tracing innovation and facilitate development of diagnostics and treatments.

2. Expand Access to Telehealth Services

• Provide capital grants to health care providers for projects which improve access to telehealth services.
• Study of the feasibility of a voucher or subsidy program by which low income individuals who currently lack connectivity can access telehealth services. 
• Develop a telehealth resource center where consumers and providers can find educational material and which assists providers in the implementation of telehealth services including a telehealth readiness assessment tool.

3. Encourage Decentralization of Clinical Trials

• Create institutional review board, provider and consumer decentralized clinical trial education material to standardize and facilitate greater clinical trial participation.
• Identify and address impediments to decentralized clinical trials (e.g., drug supply chain and telemedicine laws and technical limitations).

4. Increase Diversity in Clinical Trials

• Develop clinical trial education material in multiple languages and in different media for patients.
• Develop searchable data on sites and healthcare providers serving diverse populations.

5. Protect Patient Privacy

• Maintain a fair and patient-protective regulatory climate for use and stewardship of protected data and information.

Grow New York’s Bio/Med Industry

1. Prioritize Life Sciences Workforce Development

• Create a Life Sciences Workforce Development Response Team to provide customized training tailored to the needs of the state’s life sciences companies.
• Establish a Higher Education/Industry Life Sciences Consortium to address the education and training challenges facing the industry.

2. Create an Innovation-Focused Tax Policy

• Expand corporate, manufacturing and investment credits to secure New York’s future as a leader in the biomedical and healthcare fields.
• Review and reform New York’s tax laws related to insure comptetiveness with the nation’s leading centers of biomedical innovation.

3. Support Medical Device Manufacturing

• Convene a Medical Device Industry Summit to develop strategies to foster growth of medical device manufacturing.
• Develop career and technical training programs tailored to medical device manufacturing.
• Expand incentives to support internships, apprenticeships and other workforce development programs.

4. Foster Gene and Cell Therapy Manufacturing

• Identify locations for gene and cell therapy manufacturing facilities in New York.
• Provide capital grants and incentives to improve access to raw materials.  
• Convene:
  •  A work group of life science and tech companies to identify therapy bottlenecks and work collaboratively on solutions,
  •  A work group of higher education institutions to improve access to raw materials and develop relevant training programs. 
  • Review law and regulations to identify barriers to the development of, and access to, gene and cell therapy, and recommend modification or elimination of those that impede success.