AACR Statement on President Biden’s New Budget Proposal

PHILADELPHIA – Today, American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) President Philip D. Greenberg, MD, FAACR, and AACR CEO Margaret Foti, PhD, MD (hc), issued the following statement regarding President Biden’s fiscal year (FY) 2025 budget proposal:

“While the AACR applauds President Biden’s ongoing commitment to the reignited Cancer Moonshot in his FY 2025 budget request, his proposal underscores the damaging effects of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, which severely restricts funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other vital programs that improve health and save lives. The discretionary spending caps jeopardize tremendous progress being made in cancer research and other areas of biomedical science by curtailing the significant budget increases NIH has received since FY 2016. Due to the restrictions on federal spending imposed by the debt ceiling agreement, the President’s budget proposes only a modest increase that falls well below the rate of inflation in the base budget for NIH’s vital research and training programs.

Despite the difficult budget environment, the President’s proposed budget for FY 2025 would make important investments in Cancer Moonshot programs, including a $500 million increase for the National Cancer Institute (NCI), an approximately $100 million increase for Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cancer prevention programs, and a $121 million increase for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Center for Tobacco Products. Notably, the President’s budget seeks to raise the FDA statutory tobacco user fee cap by $114 million and broadens the classes of tobacco products subject to user fees. The budget also proposes to reauthorize the 21st Century Cures Act Cancer Moonshot fund, allocating $2.9 billion in mandatory funding ($1.45 billion each year) to NCI from FY 2025 to FY 2026. Taken together, these proposals would be important steps in the fight against cancer.

In this moment of unprecedented advancement and possibility in cancer science, it is crucial that Congress move away from budget caps and instead provide robust, sustained funding increases in FY 2025 for NIH, NCI, CDC, and FDA so that our nation and the world may achieve further transformative breakthroughs for patients with cancer and the hundreds of other diseases that afflict millions of Americans.”