President Trump signs a series of executive orders at Capital One Arena on Inauguration Day
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YYESTERDAYThe Trump administration imposed a wide range of restrictions on the National Institutes of Health (NIH): a pause in all external communications, a hiring freeze, a travel ban and, perhaps most importantly, the cancellation of grant review panels, at least until February 1. These panels, where a team of NIH experts review research proposals, are required before the $47.4 billion agency distributes money to support research from hospitals, colleges and universities. biotech companies.
Most of this money goes to cancer research. The NIH budget has an annual budget of $7.1 billion for the National Cancer Institute, of which more than $3 billion annually is allocated directly to research into the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of cancer, which causes over 600,000 deaths in the U.S. each year. year. The rest goes to patient care, training and dissemination of information about the disease.
NCI supports 72 individual cancer centers, which provide advanced care for cancer patients while also conducting research into new ways to treat and prevent cancer. It also supports over 5,000 grantees, such as research hospitals and universities. It partners with the private sector to provide financial support for promising technologies, such as potential new treatments for cancer treatment, or new devices for cancer diagnosis and screening. NCI funding has led directly to some of the most widely used cancer drugs today. A research hiatus threatens this entire ecosystem, which is responsible for helping reduce cancer death rates by 34% since 1991, according to the American Cancer Society.
“While we are watching developments closely, it is too early to know all the implications of this decision,” said John Carpten, chief scientific officer at the City of Hope cancer research hospital. Forbes in a statement.
NIH, NCI and the White House did not respond to a request for comment.
“I can’t stress enough the damage this will do to people and to US research supremacy.”
The pause has the greatest impact on individual scientists, who rely on NIH grants to support their ongoing cancer research. These grants not only provide laboratory equipment, but also pay their salaries and the salaries of their team. Delays in reviewing grants risk creating gaps in lab funding – and potentially job losses and the disruption of vital research. (While the grant panel’s hiatus is currently until February 1, rescheduling missed meetings will likely lead to delays beyond that date.)
“Almost every American university and college that does essential biology research is able to do so because of federal support,” Sam Wang, a neuroscientist at Princeton, wrote in Bluesky. “Hundreds of lecturers, postdocs and students at my university alone. I cannot stress enough the damage this will do to the people and to US research supremacy.”
These risks are not hypothetical. NCI-supported undergraduate research has led to innovative ways to diagnose, prevent, and treat cancer. For example, NCI dollars funded research that led to a vaccine against HPV, which causes cervical cancer. Since that vaccine was approved by the FDA in 2006, deaths from cervical cancer have decreased by 65%. It has also been good for the economy. Merck, which makes the vaccine, reported that its global sales will reach $8.9 billion in 2023.
These research dollars don’t just support university professors. Many cancer treatments have their origins in biotech startups that grow out of university research. When these companies are in their early stages, support from the NIH can be a crucial source of capital. This is especially important now, as continued high interest rates are likely to shift investor dollars away from early-stage companies.
For example, NCI research led to the development of rituximab, the first approved antibody therapy for cancer. This type of cancer drug is now one of the main ways cancer is treated. But during its development by IDEC Pharmaceuticals (now Biogen), the NCI also funded the important clinical trials needed to get FDA approval.
NCI also works with larger and more established companies. For example, it partnered with Pfizer and Moderna to support cancer vaccine research. (This support unexpectedly paid off during the last pandemic, when the same technology was applied to develop Covid vaccines). He is also supporting pharmaceutical company BridgeBio in clinical trials for a cancer drug that was discovered using supercomputing research by the Department of Energy.
Beyond funding for cancer research, the NCI also supports a number of clinical trials for new drugs across the country. Most importantly, it manages the review boards that approve new clinical trials for cancer treatments. Now those boards are banned from meeting indefinitely, meaning testing for potentially life-saving drugs has also been delayed. Historically, these clinical trials have given patients the opportunity to extend their lives by months or years. For them, the delay of several weeks to engage in such a trial is not merely a concern.
It is a matter of life and death.