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Feb. 1 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama increased the National Institutes of Health budget proposal by $1 billion, or 3.2 percent, in fiscal 2011, earmarking $6 billion for cancer research and $222 million for work in autism. Even so, the proposed $32.1 billion budget for the year beginning Oct. 1 falls short of the $36 billion the federal agency was able to spend in fiscal 2010 because of money from the government’s economic stimulus effort. The cancer funding will help initiate 30 new drug trials in 2011 and a doubling of the number of novel compounds in clinical trials by 2016, according to budget documents. The autism push will help define genetic and environmental factors contributing to the disease. Mark Lively, president of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, had asked the administration to match the $37 billion the agency had to spend this year, including the stimulus money. “In this current economy, we have to applaud the president for recognizing the value of biomedical research,” Lively said today. “While it could have been much worse, we also have to recognize that it’s less than what NIH had to spend this year.” Lively’s organization, located in Bethesda, Maryland, has argued that the stimulus money “got spending back on track after flat-funding since 2003,” Lively said. The federation is made up of 23 professional groups, including the American Association of Immunologists, American Society of Human Genetics and American College of Sports Medicine. ‘Sounds Big’ “We know this sounds big, especially in this budget where I am sure there are departments seeing cuts,” he said. “But medical research isn’t like a highway project where you get the money, build the bridge and you’re done.” The NIH provides almost one-third of the nation’s medical research grants, funding more than 300,000 scientists working in over 3,100 universities, medical schools, hospitals and research facilities. Although its budget doubled between fiscal 1998 and 2003, funding remained unchanged in the years since — until 2009 when it was awarded $10.4 billion under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The agency, also based in Bethesda, will focus its investments on priority areas including genomics, global health and science to support health care reform, according to Obama’s proposal released today. Stimulus Money The stimulus money… which the administration said was a one-time boost, went to fund projects in DNA sequencing and study of the cancer genome, according to the NIH Web site. “NIH is the foundation of basic science research in health,” said Lively, who is also the director of molecular genetics program at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. There is nothing that can pick up the slack when it doesn’t get the money.” NIH and medical research face two hurdles to growth this year — Obama’s call for a spending freeze and the priority he has placed on non-health-related science research in alternative energy development. “The feeling in Washington may be that you guys in health got your money,” said Patrick Clemins, of the Washington-based American Academy for the Advancement of Science. “Now, it’s someone else’s turn.” If the U.S. pulls back in spending, it may cede its current leadership in R&D to countries such as China, which is increasing its funding, said Mary Woolley, the president of Research!America, an advocacy group based in Alexandria, Virginia, with 500 member organizations including the medical schools of Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University and Yale University and companies led by New York-based Pfizer Inc. and Johnson & Johnson, of New Brunswick, New Jersey. Leading Spender The U.S. is by far the leader in spending on research and development, accounting for 35 percent of the global total in 2008, 2009 and 2010, according to a study by Cleveland-based Battelle, a science and technology research and development enterprise. China in those years has increased its share from 9.1 percent to 12.2 percent, the report showed. “Whenever there is a breakthrough in health care, the benefit is enjoyed worldwide,” she said. “But the economic benefit goes to the country where the breakthrough is made. Will those new startups be here or will they be in Singapore or India or China? “Japan has been cutting its spending in those years and many see that as ceding the No. 2 position in the world to China,” Woolley said. “It could happen to the U.S. It happened before in autos and consumer electronics.” Funding Faucet Turning the funding faucet on and off can force labs to close down capacity and lay off post-graduate students pursuing areas of research the nation wants to sustain, said Clemins, the academy’s director of research and development, budget and policy. Long term, it discourages students to go into biology and other health-related disciplines, he said. “When there was a doubling in the budget, there was a lot of excitement about going into biomedical research and universities built a lot of infrastructure to support the work that increase funded,” he said. Students either pursue alternative careers or go into the applied science research in companies, Clemins said. Leaving basic research to private funding also means that some of it may be kept secret and tied up in proprietary intellectual property, he said. “Flat-funding does not encourage innovation or attract innovators,” Woolley said.

Via:bloomberg.com