The director of the National Institutes of Health said it would be disappointing if the agency’s $2 billion funding boost doesn’t continue and, instead, funding evaporates over time.
“If we go back in the doldrums, it is going to be really disappointing,” said Francis Collins after he spoke at the 2016 annual meeting of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America in Washington.
NIH received a big boost in the omnibus spending bill approved by Congress and President Obama in December, but now the question turns to whether funding will be consistent.
Advocates for more funding for the agency, which funds medical research projects, point out that money for NIH doubled about a decade ago but then steadily declined.
At the core of the issue are the arcane budgetary terms “mandatory” and “discretionary.” Mandatory government funding has to be appropriated by Congress every year, while discretionary funding levels can increase or decrease.
Federal agencies usually have to go before Congress to justify discretionary funding for federal programs.
The NIH budget is about $32 billion, with the agency getting a $2 billion boost in the 2015 omnibus spending deal approved late last year.
Last year, the House approved the 21st Century Cures Act that included about $10 billion in new mandatory funding for NIH to be doled out over five years.
Senate Democrats have proposed even more, proposing a bill earlier this month that gives both the NIH and the Food and Drug Administration $5 billion a year in mandatory funding.
But Senate Republicans have balked at more mandatory funding.
“My own view is mandatory funding should not be a substitute for discretionary funding,” Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said during a hearing Wednesday.
Alexander added he isn’t sure how the new mandatory funding would be paid for.
The Senate is considering a slew of bills that would act as its companion to the 21st Century Cures Act, but Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said Wednesday she would hold up the legislation if more guaranteed funding for NIH isn’t attached.
Collins said Alexander is a “strong supporter of medical research.”
He conceded that Congress is working in a tough budgetary environment, as sequestration spending caps weren’t raised by much.
The clash over guaranteed funding comes as the administration is pushing some major medical research initiatives. They include the precision medicine initiative aimed at creating more targeted treatments for ailments such as cancer through gene therapies.
Another major initiative is the cancer “moonshot” effort being spearheaded by Vice President Joe Biden, which aims to prioritize research into new cancer treatments.
