For the first time in 12 years, the National Institutes of Health budget received a significant increase from Congress — a 6.6% boost of $2 billion.
That increases the National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget to $32 billion, according to Forbes.
“The sound that you probably heard was the collective sigh of (some) relief from scientists, researchers and universities, who have been struggling with the toughest research funding climate in years,” the publication wrote. “But the benefits of this increased investment go well beyond the scientific and educational communities and could help you, regardless of your walk of life.”
Funding specifics
The funding includes:
- $200 million for the new Precision Medicine Initiative, which aims to find treatments that can be tied to genetic makeup. Announced in January 2015, the program could be a major research initiative. A million people are set to be enrolled in 2016, Huffington Post said, noting the potential for problems.
“Can we ensure that it is appropriately representative of Americans from all walks of life, and that trust will be built in the government’s ability to handle sensitive health information?” it wrote. “Can all the stakeholders play nice and lean in to realize the vision?”
- A $350 million increase for Alzheimer’s disease research. An Alzheimer’s Association scientific panel said $2 billion a year is needed “to maximize the chances of curing or preventing the disease by 2025,” The Washington Post
- $150 million, an $85 million increase, for the BRAIN Initiative, which is mapping the human brain.
- An increase of $100 million (to $461 million) to study antibiotic resistance. In all, $774 million (an increase of $303 million) will go to the NIH, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, the Centers for Disease Control and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, according to the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education and Related Agencies Appropriation Bill. The goal is to develop new antibiotics, upgrade antibiotic stewardship and create a system for rapidly identifying resistant bacteria.
- An increase of $47.5 million (to $320.8 million) for the Institutional Development Award. That program aims at bolstering NIH funding in states with historically poor success rates for grant applications.
- Increases of about 4% for every NIH institute and center; these support ongoing basic biomedical and translational research.
“This was one of the rare years when Obama and lawmakers from both parties all agreed on the need for more medical research funding. Congress doubled the NIH budget between 1998 and 2003, but after that, the big increases stopped,” according to statnews.com, which noted that inflation had trimmed the agency’s purchasing power by 22%.
