Is the NIH Freeze Thawing?

By Sougato Das, President and COO, Life Science Nation (LSN)

On January 23rd, the Trump administration suspended research-grant reviews, scientist travel, external communications, and training at the NIH, causing concern in the worldwide health research community. This included a temporary freeze on 80% of the NIH’s $47-billion budget, much of which goes to funding early-stage research (the NIH awards more than 60,000 grants every year, supporting at least 300,000 researchers).

Four days later, a clarification was issued: “Procurement, contracting, traveling and hiring at NIH are continuing for anything directly related to human safety, human or animal healthcare, security, biosafety, biosecurity and IT security.” No new studies were being launched, but purchasing and hiring for studies before January 20th would continue. Additionally, essential expenditures for ongoing research and patient care, such as laboratory supplies and necessary travel for treatment or research continuation, were permitted. Finally, operations for existing research discussions and necessary travel would be allowed.

According to a memo obtained by NPR, the restrictions were to be lifted on February 1st. During this time, we saw posts on LinkedIn from startups and their investors alike that SBIR/STTR awardees couldn’t get already approved funds disbursed to them. By January 30th, NIH researchers had unionized to demand negotiations over the freeze, citing severe limits on their work, career progression and freedom of speech. More recently, many major universities started expressing significant concern, as much of their life science research depends on NIH funding.

To add to this complexity, on January 31st, RFK proposed that the Senate Health Committee (23 senators, 2 with medical degrees) should review NIH study proposals to ensure they are free from bias and flawed methodologies. This caused concerns about the impact on independence and confidentiality of scientific research. Finally, yesterday, a federal judge extended an order blocking the Trump administration from enforcing a sweeping freeze on federal grants. Though non-dilutive funding is a critical component of startup development, now may be the time for investors to step up to fill the gap in the current uncertain environment.

While the impacts of the tumultuous past 2 weeks are yet to be realized, areas such as DEI, socially controversial medical topics, and return on investment are under the most scrutiny. On the last of these topics, Life Science Nation (LSN) helps startups get the funding they need to be successful by tackling the ‘red-headed stepchild’ of the medical world: training scientist CEOs to do sales, marketing, and business development. At LSN we firmly believe that in many cases, it’s not the science that fails but the fundraising, forcing otherwise promising innovations to collapse at the end of the cash runway.

By leveraging our investor database, CRM, BD-assist program, and RESI conferences to connect startups with well-aligned investors and in-licensors, we get startups funded fast, saving them critical time and money. In addition, by taking startups through our training courses, we give them the tools to conduct the 9-18 month road show necessary to get the investment to move their assets forward or grow already on-market products. Getting a better ROI on the portion of our tax revenue that goes to funding medical research is more than achievable, and a key component is turning a scientist in to an entrepreneur.