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The 21st Century Cures Act, a bill to provide billions of dollars of funding to the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Federal agency responsible for biomedical research, sailed through the US House of Representatives last week with a rare showing of strong bipartisan support. It is expected to pass the US Senate and to be signed by President Obama, a strong backer, later this month.

The $4.8 billion in funding for NIH is targeted at three areas: cancer research (as in Joe Biden's "cancer moonshot"), brain research (including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and PTSD) and precision medicine (treatment informed by patient genomes).

However, $3.5 billion in funding of the bill will be redirected from Obamacare's Prevention and Public Health Fund, which is chartered to research Alzheimer's and other infectious diseases, so it could be argued that the bill reduces the Federal government's commitment to Alzheimer's research.

While the NIH employs thousands of researchers, most of the new funds are expected to be distributed to researchers at universities, hospitals, and other external labs.

The bill also authorizes $1 billion to fight the nation's opioid crisis, and $500 million in additional funding for the Federal Drug Administration (FDA).

As part of the compromise needed to attract Republican support, the bill loosens the guidelines on the FDA needed to approve a new drug or medical device; the industry and some patient advocates have complained about red tape in getting new drugs approved. However, the new approach has troubled some doctors who have followed the legislation.

Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) have attacked the bill as a giveaway to the pharmaceutical and medical device industries, at the expense of the health of consumers and patients. Some conservative groups also oppose the bill as a waste of public funds.

Legislation text; political analysis from StatNews.

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