Sen. Lamar Alexander hopes to get a major package of biomedical research bills to the Senate floor by next month.
Alexander said on the Senate floor that he is in talks with Democrats on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee to iron out the biggest sticking point: funding for the National Institutes of Health.
“I am working today on an agreement that will give the NIH a surge of funding for the precision medicine initiative and give researchers a giant boost in their efforts to tailor treatments to a patient’s genome,” Alexander said.
He added that senators are also working on funding boosts to the cancer moonshot initiative being spearheaded by Vice President Joe Biden.
The HELP committee earlier this year passed more than 15 bills aimed at addressing barriers to getting new treatments out to patients.
While the bills received bipartisan support, Republicans and Democrats sharply disagreed over NIH funding. Democrats had introduced a bill to add $5 billion in new mandatory funding each year.
Republicans were not interested in adding mandatory funding, which must be maintained each year. Discretionary funding levels can be altered each year.
Democrats have said that the NIH needs a consistent funding stream to make the cures legislation a reality.
The House in its legislation added nearly $9 billion over five years in new funding to the NIH, tapping a small part of the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve for the money. The House passed the 21st Century Cures Act last year by a vote of 344-77.
