Energy officials from the 21 APEC member economies have selected the Asia-Pacific’s top green innovations for 2017, redefining standards for clean, efficient energy use and powering improved living conditions and economic opportunities across the world’s largest energy consuming region. Successfully adopted technologies and approaches – from ultra-responsive traffic fighting systems to solar powered cities and advanced metering that enables low-income consumers to better manage energy use and reduce their energy bills – were evaluated as part of a multi-year APEC Energy Smart Communities Initiative. The project details have been made publically accessible to facilitate their replication as well as the engineering of new innovations. It lays the groundwork for complementary measures being developed this week by APEC Senior Officials in Ha Noi to realize measurably sustainable cities. “APEC economies are continuing to actively work towards our ambitious goals of doubling the share of renewable energy in the region by 2030 and reducing our energy intensity by 45 per cent by 2035,” said Dr Jyuung-Shiauu Chern, Lead Shepherd of the APEC Energy Working Group, which administers regional policy collaboration within the sector. “The innovations and performance data we are seeing in the Asia-Pacific in terms of clean and efficient energy use

Chair Eshoo and Ranking Member Guthrie, thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today on neurodegenerative disease drug development and approval. I have spent a substantial portion of my medical career researching and treating disorders and diseases of the brain, and I am particularly gratified to come before this Committee for the first time in my capacity as Director of the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA or the Agency) Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) to testify on the topic of neuroscience. Neuroscience is an area of medicine where there is tremendous unmet need for safe and effective treatments and for research that can guide the development of new therapies. The pace of drug development in the United States has advanced to a point where FDA is steadily approving new therapies that make major improvements in the lives of patients with a wide range of diseases. In the last several years, FDA has increased the number of drugs approved that improve and prolong the lives of, or even cure, patients who suffer from devastating, and in some cases, previously fatal diseases.