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BILLS, BILLS, BILLS
House Passes Senate Bill (S. 3678)
“Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act”
Prior to Congress adjourning on December 9,
2006, the House passed by unanimous consent S.
3678, the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness
Act, a bill to authorize funding to
biotechnology firms developing drugs and
vaccines for bioterrorism-related illnesses and
infectious diseases. The money is intended to
help companies through the so called “Valley of
Death,” a period in the start-up process when
they need to conduct costly research and
scale-up manufacturing capabilities but don’t
yet have products that translate into government
contracts or private investment.
Among its many provisions, S. 3678 would require
establishment within HHS of a Biomedical
Advanced Research and Development Authority
(BARDA) to serve as a single point of
authority in the Federal Government for civilian
medical countermeasure advanced research and
development as well as a strategic plan for
countermeasure research, development and
procurement. In July 2006, FASEB
applauded establishment of BARDA. The
bill would also require the Secretary’s National
Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity,
administered by NIH’s Office of Biotechnology
Activities, to provide when requested by the
Secretary, advice, guidance, or recommendations
to relevant Federal departments and agencies on
biological containment laboratory worker
training and periodic evaluations of such
laboratories. The Senate passed the measure on
December 5th.
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POLICY NEWS
NIH Announces New Fiscal Policies for
FY2007 Grant Awards
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) issued a
notice on December 15th, outlining its
plans for dealing with the flat funding and
increased numbers of applications in FY2007.
According to the notice, NIH will cease to make
inflationary increases for non-competing
renewal awards or modular grants. Based on
programmatic or scientific priorities,
institutes and centers (ICs) will have the
flexibility to supplement these awards on a case
by case basis. The money saved from eliminating
the inflationary increase will be put towards an
estimated 9, 600 new and competing research
project grants (RPGs). These RPGs will be
prioritized, with ICs first considering new
investigators, followed by first time grantees
seeking their first renewal, then established
grantees with insufficient other support.
Finally, ICs will have some flexibility, again
based on programmatic and
scientific priorities. All of these will be
dependent, of course, on the applicant having a
review score near the payline of the relevant
IC. For more information, please see:
http://grants1.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-07-030.html
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CONGRESSIONAL SCHEDULE
The House and Senate adjourned, ending the 109th
Congress. The 110th Congress will
convene on January 2, 2006.
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