Jim Banks Asks RFK Jr. For Update On 'Reshoring Medicine Production From China'

At a Senate Health Committee hearing on Wednesday, Sen. Jim Banks (R-IN) questioned HHS Sec. RFK Jr. about the US importing medicines from China.

Transcript

00:00Secretary Kennedy we're importing a third of our medicines from China. It's

00:05a public health risk as well as a national security risk and you and I

00:08discussed this in your confirmation hearing. I asked you at that point about

00:13reshoring medicine production from China during that hearing. I wonder if you

00:17could give us any updates on how that's happening. Yeah I think there are very

00:21exciting things happening and and some of them is direct result of President

00:28Trump's tariffs and I've been working very closely with David Ricks of Eli Lilly.

00:32I think they've been the most aggressive of any of the pharmaceutical companies

00:37about answering President Trump's summons to onshore production. They have nine

00:43facilities now that are breaking ground and they're valid one of them the API

00:49facility that they're breaking ground on will be I believe the biggest API

00:54facility in the world these are ingredients active pharmaceutical

01:00ingredients. China controls that market right now and this single facility could

01:06give us back dominance of that market so I'm very very optimistic about what's

01:10happening and you know I'm very grateful to Eli Lilly which has not always been a

01:16big ally of mine. I'm grateful and we've been working very closely with the

01:21leadership of Eli Lilly to make sure they get what they need to onshore production

01:26because we saw during COVID that for essential medicines we cannot afford to

01:32have the ingredients offshored. Thank you for your leadership I yield back.