| ||||||||||||||||||||||
January 2004 NEWSLETTER
POLICY UPDATENIH Funding Update
On January 22, Congress passed the FY 2004 Consolidated Appropriations Bill (H.R. 2673). This omnibus package includes $27.825 billion for NIH, a 3.1% increase over FY 2003. The NCI's budget is set at $4.74 billion, a 3.3% increase over last year.Such small funding increases puts pressure on the NIH to fund fewer grant applications because of out-year commitments to multiple-year grants awarded during the budget doubling period.
President Bush recently sent his FY2005 Budget to Congress, which contains only a 2.5% increase for the NIH. According to projections from the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, an increase at that level would result in 584 fewer grants funded by the agency than in FY 2004. Friends of Cancer Research joins numerous other groups in urging Congress and the administration to provide a more robust NIH budget increase in FY 2005.
NCI Launches Weekly Cancer Bulletin
Starting in January, the NCI launched a new on-line newsletter: the NCI Cancer Bulletin. This weekly publication contains timely information about important NCI programs and initiatives. Subscribers are sent a weekly e-mail with a link to the Bulletin. To download the latest version and/or to add your E-mail to the weekly distribution list, click here.FRIENDS ACCOMPLISHMENTS
"Overcoming Barriers to Early Phase Clinical Trials" Semi Annual Workshop
Friends of Cancer Research attended a workshop in early January hosted by AACI for grant recipients of a two-year, $5.7 million NCI funding initiative. Scientists from the six grantee institutions were on hand to provide an update on their pilot projects for increasing accrual to early phase clinical trials: Massachusetts General Hospital; Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center; University of California, Davis Cancer Center; University of Colorado Health Services Center; University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute; and Washington University, St. Louis.This unique project was made possible through collaboration between the NCI, the FNIH (Foundation for the National Institutes of Health), the AACI, and Friends along with five industry partners: Aventis, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly and Company, GlaxoSmithKline, and Novartis. The participants heard from all the industry representatives as well as the NCI's Office of Education and Special Initiatives, who presented on the Clinical Trials Education Series.
Women’s Cancer Initiative
We are in the very early stages of an exciting new initiative that will be officially launched in the coming months. This collaborative project will involve millions of dollars for research targeted at early detection and screening for women’s cancer. We will provide more details and information regarding this project once it has been launched publicly.
