WASHINGTON, DC – The National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) today issued the following statement after the House of Representatives passed H.R. 160, the Protect Medical Innovation Act of 2015, introduced by Reps. Erik Paulsen (R-MN) and Ron Kind (D-WI).
“The U.S. has been the global leader in the development of medical device innovation for the last three decades. However, the imposition of the medical device tax has been a massive burden on the sector and has significantly damaged our competitive advantage,” said Bobby Franklin, President and CEO of NVCA. “The imposition of a tax on all medical device sales is particularly harsh for small venture-backed medical device companies because it is imposed whether the company has made a profit or not. This creates extra hurdles for the startups to overcome by stretching the time and money required to achieve profitability and discouraging investment in medical device innovation. We applaud Reps. Paulsen and Kind for their leadership on this important issue and urge the Senate to take swift action to eliminate this costly tax on medical innovation.”
