Every cancer drug you prescribe today was once an NIH grant nobody noticed. Pharma celebrates launches. Few notice the 20–40 year runway behind that. Gleevec took 41 years from NIH-funded discovery of the Philadelphia chromosome → FDA approval. Behind every “breakthrough” sits a graveyard of failed attempts that made it possible. Cut that lineage today, the next Gleevec doesn’t arrive in 2067. Funded science matters. If someone says NIH funded science is inefficient, show them this. - - - - - Source: NIH RePORTER · FDA · via @Jori_health - - - - -

The cuts aren’t random. They’re targeting on-ramps. When we zoom into 2026 funding decline by mechanism, the deepest cuts land on new ideas entering the system: ▪️Small R (R03 / R15) ↓81% ▪️R21 exploratory grants ↓73% ▪️Other high-variance mechanisms ↓70%+ If you want to stall science, this is exactly how. Meanwhile, among other news: ▪️R01s ↓47% ▪️R37 MERIT ↓40% In other words, the earliest-stage bets are being starved first. When the on-ramps close, the damage shows up later: ↓ pilot data ↓ resubmissions that mature into R01s ↓ new labs surviving their early years ↓ shared cores that support entire departments ↓ discoveries that ever reach trials So much remains unanswered. This week we’re digging deeper: -which disease areas rely most on these mechanisms -which institutions are most exposed -where the first downstream breaks appear (trials, screening, imaging, prevention, survivorship) If you run a lab, grants office, or cancer center, tell us what cut you want. Source: NIH RePORTER via @Jori_health