Skip to main content
S. 1862 119th Congress Senate

ORPHAN Cures Act

Official title: A bill to amend title XI of the Social Security Act to expand and clarify the exclusion for orphan drugs under the Drug Price Negotiation Program.

Introduced: May 22, 2025 Introduced by: John Barrasso Republican · Wyoming See on congress.gov
Health
Sign in to write a letter Sign in to watch
 Everywhere this bill has been 2 steps
Introduced
In committee
Reported out
Passed House
Passed Senate
To President
Became law
May 22, 2025
Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance. (text: CR S3119)
May 22, 2025
Introduced in Senate
 Ask about this bill AI · grounded in the bill text

Have a question about what this bill does? Ask in plain English; the answer is drawn from the bill's actual text and official record, and it'll tell you when something isn't in the text rather than guess.

AI answers can be imperfect; always confirm against the full bill text.

What's happening now May 22, 2025

Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance. (text: CR S3119)

 Plain-English summary Congressional Research Service

Optimizing Research Progress Hope And New Cures Act or the ORPHAN Cures Act

This bill modifies certain provisions under the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program with respect to orphan drugs.

The Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program requires the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to negotiate the prices of certain prescription drugs under Medicare beginning in 2026. Among other requirements, drugs must have had market approval for at least 7 years (for drug products) or 11 years (for biologics) to qualify for negotiation. The program does not apply to orphan drugs that are approved to treat only one rare disease or condition.

The bill modifies these provisions so as to exclude any period in which a drug was an orphan drug from market approval calculations. It also excludes orphan drugs that are approved to treat more than one rare disease or condition from the program.

 Related & companion bills 1
 Bill text 1 version

Source documents hosted by congress.gov.

 Committees of jurisdiction 1
 Lobbying activity 106

Registered lobbyists who named this bill in their disclosure filings. Source: federal Lobbying Disclosure Act filings.

Bodies those filers lobbied

A filing lists the bills it worked on and the parts of government it contacted in separate sections, so these are the bodies those filers named anywhere in the filing, not a per-bill breakdown.

See all 106 filings →
 Cosponsors 1
All 1 Democratic 1
D
Heinrich, Martin
New Mexico · May 22, 2025
Cite this page click to expand
APA
U.S. Congress. (2026). S. 1862: ORPHAN Cures Act. 119th Congress. Open America. https://openamerica.io/bill/119-S-1862/
MLA
"S. 1862: ORPHAN Cures Act." 119th Congress, 2026, Open America, https://openamerica.io/bill/119-S-1862/.
Bluebook (legal)
S. 1862, 119th Cong. (2026), https://openamerica.io/bill/119-S-1862/.
Markdown link
[S. 1862: ORPHAN Cures Act](https://openamerica.io/bill/119-S-1862/)
Report a problem