NIH would get $2 billion bump in funding under Senate bill

medical news U.S.
 June 6, 2016

WASHINGTON — The National Institutes of Health would receive a $2 billion increase for the second year in a row under a funding bill that’s expected to be approved by a Senate panel on Tuesday, sources close to the negotiations told STAT on Monday.

The bill, which would provide about $34 billion in funding for the nation’s health programs for the fiscal year starting in October, is the Senate’s attempt to set a continuing pattern of funding federal increases for medical research after more than a decade of stagnant budgets.

The new bill also includes $1.4 billion for Alzheimer’s research — a $400 million increase over this year’s funding — and $300 million for President Obama’s Precision Medicine Initiative, an increase of $100 million, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record.....