NIH Director Outlines Agency Reforms and Priorities

NIH Director Jayanta Bhattacharya, MD, PhD, provided testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions during a hearing focused on efforts to address Americans’ trust in the agency through transparency, changes to the grant process, grant terminations and funding disruptions, and overall biomedical research priorities.

Dr. Bhattacharya shared actions taken by NIH to enhance and improve transparency, including consolidating peer review, creating an office to address replication crises and implementing a unified funding strategy. Research priorities discussed include women’s health research, strengthening research reproducibility, modernizing data infrastructure to utilize real-world data sources, vaccine policy, and workforce distribution and vacancies.

During questioning there were conversations surrounding grant cancellations and disruptions throughout 2025, and how these actions impacted patients enrolled in clinical trials. Dr. Bhattacharya explained that although NIH was included in a partial government shutdown during FY2026 in October, NIH was still able to spend its entire budget. Ranking Member Bernie Sanders (I-VT) stated NIH had defunded more than 300 clinical trials, Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) cited 118 canceled cancer trials, and Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) noted one in 30 trials were disrupted, affecting more than 74,000 participants. Dr. Bhattacharya estimated only a dozen trials were ultimately terminated after renegotiations removed political components, and reinstatements following court proceedings. 

Reduction in force efforts and impacts to the NIH workforce were addressed. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) reported NIH's workforce shrank from 21,000 to 17,300 employees, including 1,100 doctoral scientists, with grantees reporting delays and communication challenges. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) warned cuts impact early career scientists and competing countries are actively recruiting American talent. Sen. Murray noted that many of the NIH’s institutes and centers are operating under interim leadership and advisory council member positions are not being filled. Dr. Bhattacharya recognized the need to promptly fill these leadership positions and vacant council member seats.  

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