House Republicans advancing legislation to restructure NIH

House Committee on Energy and Commerce Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers recently published Reforming the National Institutes of Health: Framework for Discussion. The blueprint calls for reducing the number of NIH institutes and centers (ICs) from 27 to 15, largely by merging some of them. The reorganization and proposed funding levels are illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Proposed reorganization and proposed funding levels for NIH restructuring. Click on the solid bar to the left of the current CIs to view the destination of the CIs. Click on the solid bar to the right of the proposed CIs to view the CI(s) that will be consolidated into it. Click in the center of the horizontal bar to see the proposed change in funding after the restructuring.

In addition to consolidating centers, McMorris Rodgers’s proposal includes funding cuts to the successor institute comprised of the current Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBB), and the Common Fund. As shown in Figure 1, the new National Institute on Innovation and Advanced Research would have a budget of $973 million less than the total funding of the four current centers. The other new centers would see increases.

The proposal does not have bipartisan support. During the markup of the FY 2025 Labor, Health, and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Funding Bill, Democratic Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, ranking member of the committee, remarked that the NIH reorganization proposed in the bill “falls short” and lacks the discussion and “thoughtful process” that would produce bipartisan support. The bill was approved by the House Appropriations Committee on July 10, 2024.

At this time, the Senate’s perspective on Rodgers’ proposal is uncertain. The U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Ranking Member Bill Cassidy (R-LA) issued a white paper in May suggesting changes to NIH, but these do not include a significant restructure. The Senate has not yet revealed an FY 2025 funding proposal for NIH.