NIH Now On Track to Spend Its Full Budget by Sept. 30

The National Institutes of Health now appears on track to spend its full $47 billion budget by Sept. 30, the end of the federal fiscal year, STAT News reported Friday. That reflects “a frenzy of grantmaking activity during August,” worth more than $8 billion, STAT noted; the agency was far behind on awarding grants going into the summer, due to delays in the grant review process, the fight over the cap on indirect cost rates and widespread layoffs at the Department of Health and Human Services.

STAT’s analysis showed that as of last week, the NIH had awarded $31.2 billion in new and continuing grants—about $100 million more than the average spent by that point each year between 2016 and 2024.

“We’re essentially right on pace,” NIH principal deputy director Matthew Memoli reportedly told advisers Thursday morning. He estimated that the agency was about 3 percent behind last year at this time.

However, STAT’s analysis showed that while the value of the grants awarded is roughly the same, the NIH is funding many fewer new projects this year than in the past. That’s because earlier this year the White House Office of Management and Budget mandated a shift in the way the agency distributes research dollars to a multiyear model, meaning that at least half of all new projects will be funded up front for multiple years rather than receive a new tranche of funding each year.

While the NIH did not respond to STAT’s questions, the agency did confirm that it is supplying more multiyear grant funding, which “is expected to reduce the overall number of awards made compared to prior years.”