ALEXANDRIA, Va.—Congress passed a two-tiered continuing resolution (CR) on November 15, 2023, extending FY 2023 federal funding levels until February 2, 2024, for all Department of Health and Human Services agencies, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI). The president is expected to sign the bill.

A statement from Everett E. Vokes, MD, FASCO, Chair of the Board, Association for Clinical Oncology, follows: 

"This continuing resolution allows agencies like NIH and NCI to continue their critical work without interruption. 

“However, by the time CR expires, NIH will have been operating at flat funding for more than a quarter of the fiscal year, leaving it unable to plan for future investments or keep pace with medical inflation. Flat funding also stymies progress at the NIH and NCI, the world’s leading centers for medical and cancer research, and weakens the country’s role as the epicenter of medical innovation.

“As an organization representing nearly 50,000 oncologists dedicated to delivering equitable, high-quality cancer care to their patients, we urge lawmakers to quickly agree to a FY 2024 funding bill that increases NIH and NCI funding to ensure continued rapid progress in finding improved ways to prevent, detect, and treat this disease.”

“Federally funded cancer research has been essential in saving the lives of 18 million cancer survivors in the United States and continued robust funding will be critical to saving the lives of millions more. We appreciate the bipartisan investment in recent years and urge Congress to continue prioritizing investment in federal research and important progress in life-saving treatments for cancer.

“For FY 24, we are asking Congress to provide $51 billion for the NIH, $9.988 billion for the NCI, and to designate $1.5 billion for ARPA-H.”