
President's Budget Allocates More Funding to FDA
President's Budget Allocates More Funding to FDA
President Barack Obama released his budget proposal for fiscal year (FY) 2012, which shows an increase in funding for FDA. The FY 2012 budget requests $4.4 billion for FDA, a net program-level increase of $1 billion, or 33% compared with FY 2010. The FY 2012 budget proposal includes increased investments to implement the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, advance medical countermeasures, and improve drug safety. The release of the President’s proposed budget is the first step in the budget process as spending and revenue measures are considered by Congress.
FDA’s budget is included under the
The proposed FY 2012 HHS budget also includes $32.0 billion for the National Institutes of Health, which represents an increase of $745 million compared with the FY 2010 enacted level, to support basic and clinical research. In FY 2012, NIH estimates that it will support a total of 36,852 research project grants, including 9158 new and competing awards. In FY 2012, NIH plans to establish the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) as a mechanism for bridging the gap between basic science and therapeutic applications. With the creation of NCATS, the National Center for Research Resources will be abolished, and its programs will be transferred to the new center or other parts of NIH.
The proposed FY 2012 HHS budget also includes additional funding for medical countermeasures, or medications, vaccines, equipment, and supplies needed for health emergencies such as pandemic flu. HHS issued a report in August 2010, the Public Health Emergency Medical Countermeasures Enterprise Review: Transforming the Enterprise to Meet Long-Range National Needs, which reviewed the federal government’s system for medical countermeasures. The FY 2012 federal budget includes funding of $665 million for the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, an increase of $345 million, to improve and develop medical countermeasures to mitigate the medical consequences of potential chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear threats.
The budget also includes $100 million to establish a strategic investment corporation that would function as a public–private venture-capital fund for companies developing medical countermeasures. The budget also allocates $70 million for FDA, which builds off the $170-million request in FY 2011, to establish teams of public-health experts to support the review of
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