Obama approves US state budget for medical research

Markus MacGill

pharmaphorum

Medical research is to receive $31 billion from President Obama’s 2014 budget for the US National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The proposed overall health budget sets $80 billion of discretionary funding for the US Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the NIH. This is an almost $4 billion rise on the 2012 figure.

Among the research beneficiaries will be Alzheimer’s disease, which has been allocated a proposed $100 million.

“The significant new investments this budget contains for the NIH reflect our commitment to furthering the biomedical research… The research includes projects like the human brain mapping initiative the president announced earlier this month - as well as other programs that will spur job growth and drive us towards the medical breakthroughs of tomorrow.”

Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services.

The federal health budget does, however, include areas that will be cut. The White House has proposed cutting $400 billion over the next decade from Medicare, Medicaid and other federal health programmes.

The US National Institutes of Health carries out or supports scientific research in human health.