Higgins introduces bill to increase funding for NIH

Representatives of UB and other local organizations receiving funding from the National Institutes of Health joined Rep. Brian Higgins on Monday as he announced he has introduced legislation that would incrementally increase funding for the NIH over the next seven years. 

Higgins is co-sponsoring the Accelerating Biomedical Research Act with Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut. The DeLauro-Higgins bill, H.R. 5580, is the House companion of S. 2658, introduced by Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, a longstanding champion of NIH funding.  

“Increasing our investment in medical research should be a national priority for the jobs it creates and the lives it saves,” Higgins said at a news conference held at Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute (HWI) on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus.

“Unfortunately, Congress has let its commitment to medical research lag and American researchers are paying the price. This bill will start to return vital funding to the NIH and continue our pursuit to find better treatments and cures for so many debilitating diseases. The only failure in medical research is when you quit or are forced to quit due to lack of funding,” he said.

Joining Higgins at HWI were Michael Cain, vice president for health sciences and dean of the medical school, and John Canty Jr., Albert and Elizabeth Rekate Professor of Medicine in the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and UB’s chief of cardiovascular medicine. Also attending the event were representatives of Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI), CUBRC and HWI — all leading recipients in Western New York of NIH funding.

Research institutions and scientists working in Higgins’ district have received nearly $89 million in NIH funding in FY2013 and FY2014 alone, according to statistics supplied by Higgins’ office.

Canty noted that cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in Erie County, New York State and across the country. “NIH support ensures that my team is able to conduct groundbreaking research in this area,” Canty said. “And it is NIH support of innovative research that is fueling a thriving knowledge economy in Western New York, an important piece of which will be the opening of UB’s medical school right here on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus.”

Eaton Lattman, UB professor of structural biology, chief executive officer of HWI and principal investigator for the NSF BioXFEL Science and Technology Center in Buffalo, pointed out that America’s biomedical research infrastructure is being degraded “in much the same way as its physical infrastructure of bridges and roadways — through lack of adequate funding.”

The BioXFEL center is funded with a $25-million Science and Technology Center grant from NSF to UB, representing a national consortium of eight research universities and institutes.

“Congressman Higgins’ proposal to restore NIH funding to historic levels will regenerate our ability to find cures and to deal with crises such as the Ebola virus outbreak. It is desperately needed,” Lattman said.

Kunle Odunsi, UB professor of obstetrics and gynecology, and chair of the Department of Gynecologic Oncology and executive director of the Center for Immunotherapy at RPCI, said cuts to NIH’s budget have slowed the pace of research advances and are “forcing clinical scientists to leave good ideas unexplored and to dedicate an unacceptable share of their time to seeking alternate funding.”

“This is impacting patients,” he stressed. “You can come up with the most innovative approaches, but when you can’t get your projects funded, you can’t get them to patients.

“We applaud Congressman Higgins for his leadership on this critical issue.”

CUBRC CEO Tom McMahon said CUBRC has been performing biomedical research for more than a decade, “and without the funding provided by the U.S. government for this vital research, our world-class scientists and partners would simply not have the financial resources needed to move this important work forward.”

Since 2003, funding for medical research at the NIH has not kept pace with inflation, Higgins said. Accounting for inflation, funding for NIH in FY2013 was 22 percent less than 2003 funding levels. Between fiscal years 2012 and 2013, the NIH issued approximately 700 fewer competitive research project grants, down from 8,896 in 2012 to 8,283 in 2013. Moreover, 9,945 new patients were admitted to NIH clinical centers in 2013, 750 fewer than the 10,695 admitted in 2012. 

The Accelerating Biomedical Research Act would allot additional funding to the NIH each year for the next seven years that would exceed the amount allowed through the cap put in place by the Budget Control Act in 2011, Higgins said. The NIH currently receives $29.9 billion; under the Accelerating Biomedical Research Act, this would rise to more than $46.2 billion by 2021. 

NIH grant funding is especially important to the success and growth of the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, where jobs are expected to grow to nearly 17,000 by 2017, Higgins added.