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House Subcommittee Approves $2B Boost to NIH Funding

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) — A US House of Representatives subcommittee on Tuesday approved a bill to provide the National Institutes of Health with $2 billion in additional funding in fiscal 2020, which would bring the agency's total annual funding to $41.1 billion.

The bill specifically proposes $2.4 billion for Alzheimer's disease research versus $2.34 billion in fiscal 2019; $500 million for the All of Us precision medicine initiative, up from $376 million the year before; and an additional $35 million for the Brain Research through Application of Innovative Neurotechnologies, or BRAIN, initiative for a total of $411 million.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would also received $8.3 billion in fiscal 2020, $921 million over the enacted level for 2019.

Having cleared the House Appropriations subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies, the bill will next go before the full committee for markup.

The NIH has received steady funding increases in recent years with strong bipartisan support in Congress, despite calls for cutbacks by the White House. Last month, President Donald Trump proposed a 12 percent decrease in NIH funding in the coming fiscal year, marking the third time he has sought to reduce the agency's budget.  

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