Flat funding for NIH may impact biotech industry

The Washington area’s biotech industry is bracing for another hit as federal funding for the National Institutes of Health, one of the region’s largest providers of research and development money, remains flat for another year.

President George Bush’s proposed 2008 budget allocates $28.7 billion, a less than 1 percent increase from 2007 budget levels. For several years, scientists have been raising the red flag, saying that a slow down in NIH funding will hurt progress across a wide range of research and development projects.