WASHINGTON — Drug and device companies with manufacturing operations in Puerto Rico have told the American public that their plants are getting up and running again, but that does “not reveal the true scope of the challenge that we are facing,” Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in prepared congressional testimony made available Monday.
“We have surveyed firms and can anecdotally relate that reports of manufacturing running below 50 percent are common, with many firms operating around 20 percent capacity, and some even less,” Gottlieb’s remarks read. “We have found no firm operating above 70 percent of their normal operation.”
Gottlieb will appear before the subcommittee on oversight and investigations of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce Tuesday morning for a hearing on the Department of Health and Human Services’s response to hurricanes this summer and fall, including Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria. Officials from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the main HHS office will also testify.
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