NEW YORK — The US House of Representatives Appropriations Committee on Thursday approved a bill that would increase funding by $6.5 billion for the National Institutes of Health to $49 billion in fiscal 2022.
Of the $49 billion earmarked for the NIH under the legislation, $3 billion would be used to establish the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health to accelerate the pace of scientific breakthroughs. The remaining $3.5 billion increase would go to existing NIH institutes and centers, with an increase of no less than 5 percent for each.
A total of $7 billion would go to the National Cancer Institute, a $432 million increase over its current budget; $612 million would go to the BRAIN Initiative, a year-over-year increase of $52 million; and $541 million would go to the All of Us Precision Medicine Initiative, a $41 million increase compared with fiscal 2021.
The bill — which was cleared by a 33 to 25 vote — would boost the overall budget for the US Department of Health and Human Services to $119.8 billion, an increase of $22.9 billion over the fiscal 2021 enacted level.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would see a $2.7 billion budget increase to $10.6 billion under the bill. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, meanwhile, would receive $4.3 billion in the coming fiscal year, an increase of $646 million.
Earlier this year, President Joe Biden released his budget proposal for fiscal 2022, calling for $131.7 billion for HHS and $51 billion for the NIH.