Med-tech happenings, including deals and partnerships, grants, preclinical data and other news in brief: Access Vascular, Arteraai, Grail, Mediwound, Quest, Recon Supply, Tempus.
The Biosecure Act may have died with the 118th U.S. Congress, but efforts to stop U.S. government funding of R&D in China are alive and well. Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., introduced the Stop Funding our Adversaries Act in the House Feb. 7 to prohibit direct and indirect federal funding of research in China or entities owned by China.
For the pharmaceutical industry caught in the crosshairs of a potential trade war, the consequences of U.S. tariffs on China or Europe remain largely speculative, although both would be detrimental, according to a Korea Biotechnology Industry Organization (KoreaBIO) issue briefing Feb. 7.
“This current administration is like nothing that we've seen before,” said a managing partner of a global venture capital firm who spoke to BioWorld on the condition of anonymity. “President Trump’s first term was bad,” he said, “but nobody knows what’s coming.” “This is truly nationalism at its worst, because he won on the campaign [largely] to protect American jobs, claiming that Americans have been unfairly treated.” And it's not just China, he said, but India and other countries will also likely be affected.
In fiscal 2023, the NIH spent more than $35 billion on nearly 50,000 competitive grants to more than 300,000 researchers at more than 2,500 universities, medical schools and other research institutions across the nation. Of this funding, the NIH said about $26 billion was spent on direct research costs, while $9 billion was allocated to help cover “facilities and administration” through the agency’s indirect cost rate.
The immediate implementation of the U.S. NIH’s guidance to cut indirect costs included in its grants to 15% was quickly halted late Feb. 10 when a federal district judge granted a nationwide temporary restraining order in two separate challenges to the cuts that were to go into effect that day on all existing and new NIH grants.
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