Recent news
December 2011
Appropriations agreement includes funding for global health, new NIH center
December 22, 2011 --A joint House-Senate Conference Committee recently finalized an appropriations bill for Fiscal Year (FY) 2012 that includes funding for global health programs through the State Department, US Agency for International Development (USAID), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Under the legislation, the Global Health and Child Survival Account was provided with $8.167 billion, an increase of about four percent compared with FY 2011 levels. This account funds global health work at the State Department and USAID, including all of USAID’s support for global health research and development (R&D). CDC’s global health account was funded at $348.9 million, an 2.5 percent increase compared with FY 2011. And funding for the NIH overall increased to about $30.7 billion for FY 2012. Also under the bill, funding for the NIH’s Fogarty International Center was increased by about 0.3 percent.
The bill also authorizes and funds the new National Center for Advancing Translational Science (NCATS) at the NIH. The bill provided $576 million for NCATS, including $10 million for the Cures Acceleration Network. NIH leadership believes that NCATS will help advance research and development for new health products, including global health tools. It was proposed by NIH Director Francis Collins to reengineer the process of developing drugs, diagnostics, and devices.
According to Collins, NCATS’ mission is to “catalyze the generation of innovative methods and technologies that will enhance the development, testing, and implementation of diagnostics and therapeutics across a wide range of diseases and conditions. The new center’s activities will complement, and not compete with, translational research being carried out at NIH and elsewhere in the public and private sectors.”
