21st Century Cures Act

The 21st Century Cures Act supports research to discover, develop, and deliver new innovations and advances in biomedicine and treatment options. 

The law received bipartisan support in Congress and was signed into law on December 13, 2016.

21st Century Cures helps provide individualized treatments for people with autism. It benefits patients by emphasizing personalized medicine in a number of ways:

  • Helps convert discoveries into treatments for people with autism
  • Provides $500 million to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to make drugs and medical devices available to patients faster
  • Requires the FDA to include patient experience data in decision-making
  • Requires the FDA to advance development of personalized medicine

The law also advances biomedical research across the autism spectrum:

  • Encourages including diverse populations in clinical research
  • Creates an $8.75 billion fund for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to accelerate the discovery, development and delivery of new treatments and biomedical research
  • Enhances collaborative research and data sharing among NIH-supported researchers
  • Modernizes clinical trials
  • Creates incentives to develop treatment options for complex Central Nervous System (CNS) disorders like autism