LymeX Authorization Act
Summary
What This Bill Does
The bill states that U.S. policy should support patient-centered Lyme disease innovation, public education, and rapid next-generation diagnostics. It then authorizes $5 million for the HHS Secretary to run prize competitions under the Stevenson-Wydler Technology Innovation Act to accelerate innovation in Lyme disease prevention, diagnosis, and treatment.
Who Benefits and How
Lyme disease patients, diagnostic developers, academic researchers, small businesses, health nonprofits, and entrepreneurs benefit from a prize-competition funding path focused on faster diagnostics, prevention tools, and treatment innovation. HHS can use competitions to draw in nontraditional participants rather than relying only on grants or contracts.
Who Bears the Burden and How
The HHS Secretary must design and administer prize competitions, define competition goals, evaluate submissions, and manage the $5 million authorization. Researchers, companies, nonprofits, and entrepreneurs must compete for awards and produce patient-centered innovations. Congress must still appropriate funds before the authorization produces spendable money.
Key Provisions
- Establishes a federal policy favoring patient-centered Lyme disease innovation and public awareness.
- Authorizes $5 million for HHS prize competitions on Lyme prevention, diagnosis, and treatment.
- Uses Stevenson-Wydler prize authority to engage academia, nonprofits, industry, small businesses, entrepreneurs, and government.
Evidence Chain:
This summary is generated from the full bill text using AI analysis. Expand "Detailed Analysis" below for identified beneficiaries/burden bearers with clause-level evidence links.
At a Glance
What This Bill Does
Authorizes $5 million for HHS prize competitions to accelerate Lyme disease prevention, diagnosis, and treatment innovation, after declaring a policy to engage academia, nonprofits, industry, small businesses, entrepreneurs, and government in patient-centered Lyme disease work.
Key Policy Areas
health, research, prize_competitions
Primary Purpose
Authorizes $5 million for HHS prize competitions to accelerate Lyme disease prevention, diagnosis, and treatment innovation, after declaring a policy to engage academia, nonprofits, industry, small businesses, entrepreneurs, and government in patient-centered Lyme disease work.
Policy Domains
Substantive provisions
Identified Gains
- Lyme disease patients
- Diagnostic developers
- Academic researchers
- Small businesses
- Health nonprofits
Identified Costs
- HHS Secretary
- Prize competition applicants
- Congressional appropriators
Sponsors
Legislative Progress
In CommitteeReferred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
Introduced in House
Mr. Smith of New Jersey (for himself and Mr. Doggett) …
Stakeholder Effects
cui bono?How this legislation distributes effects. Mention counts reflect frequency, not effect magnitude.
Academic researchers, Prize competition applicants
Bill Structure & Actor Mappings
Who is "The Secretary" in each section?
- "agencies"
- → ['HHS Secretary']
- "beneficiaries"
- → ['Lyme disease patients', 'Academic researchers', 'Small businesses']
Key Definitions
Terms defined in this bill
We use a combination of our own taxonomy and classification in addition to large language models to assess meaning and potential beneficiaries. High confidence means strong textual evidence. Always verify with the original bill text.
Learn more about our methodology