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“APA shares your goals of modernizing available treatment and improving the discovery, development, and delivery of medical innovations through your proposed reforms and investments in the nation’s research apparatus,” wrote APA President Renée Binder, M.D., and CEO and Medical Director Saul Levin, M.D., M.P.A., in a letter to Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and committee member Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.).
Under the legislation, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would continue to receive the bulk of their funding over the next five years through the regular annual appropriations process, but with a temporary add-on to be allocated as mandatory spending. Further, the legislation would allocate $1.75 billion each year for five years for a special NIH and Cures Innovation Fund to accelerate biomedical research in critical areas and add $110 million a year for five years to the FDA's budget. The legislation would also change some procedures used by the FDA to approve drugs and medical devices.
“This investment will help rebuild our nation’s biomedical research capacity,” wrote Binder and Levin. “We urge a vote in favor of HR 6 as it heads to the floor of the House of Representatives.”
For more in Psychiatric News about NIH funding, see "Group Pushes House, Senate for More Research Funding."
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