White House drafts order for outside panel to review NIH grants
The plan follows a dispute between OMB Director Russell Vought and NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya over political oversight of research funding
Published
The White House is drafting an executive order that would give an outside panel the power to review, and potentially veto, National Institutes of Health grants. The move would extend administration oversight over billions of dollars in biomedical research funding.
The proposal follows a dispute between OMB Director Russell Vought and NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya over whether NIH funding should face greater political oversight. Bhattacharya has defended the agency's existing scientific grant-making process.
The plan comes as the administration's research-funding policies already face legal and congressional challenges. Thousands of grants have been targeted or terminated, and lawsuits argue that political screening of scientific research could violate researchers' First Amendment rights.
The order would mark an escalation of executive pressure on research funding beyond the terminations already underway, though its practical effect is uncertain while legal challenges and congressional resistance continue. The prospect is bearish for biotech and life sciences companies that depend on NIH funding, but the outcome hinges on whether courts or Congress block it, and markets appear to have priced in part of that risk already.