By Alex Philippidis - As Congress wrangles over a budget for the 2025 federal fiscal year, which begins October 1, the NIH will be paying especially close attention. Last year, the NIH saw its first year-over-year funding decrease since FY 2013, a $569.5 million or 1% dip that resulted in program-level funding of $47.1 billion. The reduction largely reflected a cut in funds authorized for the 21st Century Cures Act NIH Innovation Account, which shrunk 62.5% to $407 million in FY 2024 from nearly $1.1 billion the previous fiscal year. In March, President Biden proposed a FY 2025 spending plan that set aside $50.1 billion for the NIH, up 6.3% or just over $3 billion from the FY 2024 level.
A declaration of purpose
“We will continue to foster research that is responsive to new and ongoing health issues,” stated NIH director Monica M. Bertagnolli, MD, in the agency’s budget proposal. “Families across the country are grappling with new cancer diagnoses, facing high rates of maternal mortality, struggling with ill health from long COVID, losing loved ones to the opioid overdose crisis, and struggling to manage chronic diseases, among many other challenges.”
A restructuring proposal
In August, the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations approved 0.5% more for the NIH, bringing the agency to $50.35 billion. That total accounted for yet another planned cut in funding authorization for NIH Innovation Projects, set to fall another 69% to $127 million in FY 2025.
The Senate version of the NIH budget is 3.6% more than the $48.581 billion provided to the agency by the House Committee on Appropriations in July.
In June, two House Republican leaders—Rep. Robert Aderholt (AL), chair of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education; and Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA), chair of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce—proposed a restructuring of NIH that would reduce its 27 institutes and centers to 15.
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