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The House of Representatives voted 344-77 for a bill that would boost federal funding for medical research, and would speed up Food and Drug Administration approvals for many new drugs and medical devices. The bill, which won overwhelming support from both Republicans and Democrats, would increase funding for the National Institutes of Health by $8.75 billion over five years. (Burton, 7/10)

The bill tries to address the impatience that stems from a major societal problem: despite billions of dollars of research into diseases that range from common cancers to the rarest genetic diseases, we still lack treatments for thousands of conditions. Many of its provisions seek to make the drug approval process less burdensome. But its laundry list of provisions that tweak the process for approving new drugs or devices have raised significant concern from industry watchdogs and physicians who say the legislation is aimed more at helping drug and device companies than patients. (Johnson, 7/10)

For the second time this year, the House used overwhelming bipartisan unity Friday to approve health legislation, this time voting to bolster biomedical research and streamline how the government approves drugs and medical devices. The chamber's 344-77 vote sent the measure to the Senate, where a bill is unlikely until later this year. It is unclear how different the Senate version will be. (Fram, 7/10)

By the standards of the modern Congress, Representatives Fred Upton, Republican of Michigan, and Diana DeGette, Democrat of Colorado, have no business writing health care legislation together. Mr. Upton, the buttoned-up chairman of the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee, is one of the House Republicans’ go-to representatives on dismantling the Affordable Care Act. Ms. DeGette, a member of the Democratic leadership who leans decidedly left of center, counts herself among the central champions of the health care law. ... But the two lawmakers, friends since they met in a prayer group nearly two decades ago, have spent the last 18 months — sometimes with a spouse or dog in tow — sitting together through hundreds of hours of meetings with doctors, health advocates and policy experts; traveling to each other’s districts and to policy conferences around the country; and enlisting colleagues coast to coast to hold town hall-style meetings, all with the goal of developing a sweeping measure to help cure diseases. (Steinhauer and Tavernise, 7/10)

In an unusual display of bipartisanship on an issue that has divided Congress for years, the House overwhelmingly approved a biomedical research bill Friday that would change how the National Institutes of Health grants money to institutions like the Johns Hopkins University. The measure, approved on a 344-77 vote, would provide $1.75 billion in additional annual funding to the Bethesda-based NIH in exchange for the agency's placing a greater emphasis on young scientists — who often struggle to win grants — and requiring more accountability in grant making. (Fritze, 7/10)