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… (more…)