Gottlieb Testifies at E&C Committee Hearing on Initiatives to Fight Opioid Crisis

FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb highlighted the need to improve international mail facility operations and market conversion to opioids with abuse deterrents Wednesday at a House Energy and Commerce Committee subcommittee hearing on the opioid crisis.

Gottlieb told the lawmakers that just one tenth of one percent of packages are being inspected at international mail facilities, with 2.4 million packages combined coming through IMFs daily and an estimated 9 percent of all packages containing some form of drugs.

He said the agency had enhanced its operations at international mail facilities to intercept illegal narcotics such as fentanyl and is expanding the agency’s cybercrime investigative unit, which specializes in disrupting online networks that manufacture and sell counterfeit drugs.