MichBio Urges Congressional Review of Proposed NIAID Funding Transfers
MichBio is calling on Michigan’s congressional delegation to intervene before research funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is transferred to the Department of War (DOW) under a new interagency agreement.
The 10-year agreement, signed in August by NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the DOW, establishes a framework for the department to administer contracts, grants, cooperative agreements and other transactions supporting military biodefense and medical-countermeasure programs. It also allows NIH funds to support DOW program-management personnel and activities.
The agreement does not specify a funding amount or itself obligate funds. NIH and defense officials maintain that any collaboration will be approved project by project, remain within NIH’s public-health mission and produce discoveries benefiting civilians and military personnel. House Appropriations Committee Chair Tom Cole has also said that no NIH funding has yet been transferred.
Nevertheless, Nature reported that the arrangement could move hundreds of millions of dollars in infectious-disease projects from NIAID to the military. Other media coverage has highlighted the agreement’s breadth, its decade-long term and uncertainty over how much of NIAID’s approximately $6.6 billion budget could ultimately be involved.
For Michigan’s bioscience community, the concern is not simply which federal agency signs an award. NIAID funding often supports the experiments, validation studies, preclinical development and specialized personnel that allow early-stage biotechnology companies to reduce technical risk and reach milestones required for private investment.
Delays or redirection of those awards could force companies to postpone development, defer hiring, lose specialized talent or miss financing opportunities. Moving projects into a military acquisition structure also could introduce new restrictions involving publication, data access, classification, contracting or foreign collaborators - potentially limiting university and private-sector participation and making discoveries less accessible for civilian commercialization.
There are also unresolved appropriations questions. In a September overview, the Government Accountability Office emphasized that the Economy Act permits interagency purchases only within established legal limits. It cannot be used to create programs, fill another agency’s budget shortfall or circumvent the purposes and restrictions Congress placed on appropriated funds. GAO has not yet ruled on this particular agreement, which is precisely why independent review is warranted before funding orders proceed.
What MichBio Is Asking Congress to Do
In its September 17 letter, MichBio asks Michigan’s delegation to act collectively and on a bipartisan basis to:
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Suspend funding orders, transfers, solicitations, awards and personnel charges under the agreement pending congressional review.
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Require disclosure of the unredacted agreement, proposed projects, funding amounts, legal opinions, acquisition strategies and required Economy Act findings.
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Request reviews by GAO and the inspectors general for NIH’s parent department and the DOW.
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Identify every affected grant, contract, institution and company, including early-stage Michigan businesses, and assess the effects on research milestones, employment and commercialization.
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Require project-level public disclosure before any transfer and prohibit future use of NIH funding for military programs unless Congress expressly authorizes it.
MichBio supports robust coordination among civilian-health and national-security agencies. But cooperation should not become a back door for shifting congressionally appropriated biomedical-research resources, authority and accountability away from NIH. Congress should examine the agreement before research programs, companies and scientific teams face consequences that may be difficult to reverse.
