Congress Approves NIH Reauthorization Bill

As one of its final acts before adjourning, Congress passed legislation to reauthorize the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The legislation is intended to restructure the NIH, establish authorization levels for annual funding, and encourage multidisciplinary research through the creation of a “Common Fund”. Although many research organizations supported the House-passed bill, including several cancer-related organizations, ASH did not endorse the bill because of a number of concerns with various provisions of the bill, including language capping NIH funding increases at a maximum of 5 percent annually. However, as a result of ASH advocacy, the Senate made several important and significant im­provements to the House version of the NIH bill.

The major change to the bill involves providing a higher authorization level for the NIH. The House-passed bill provided for only a maximum 5 percent increase in authorized funding per year for fiscal years FY 2007-2009. ASH expressed concerns to the Senate about the impact of restricting NIH growth. The final bill provides a 7 percent authorization in FY 2007, 8 percent in FY 2008, and “such sums as may be necessary” in FY 2009.

Another significant change concerns how the new common fund will be financed. The House bill required 50 percent of all increases for NIH go to the common fund. The final bill states the common fund growth cannot be lower than the same percentage of overall NIH growth as the previous year.