Congress passed a continuing resolution (CR) on November 15, 2023, that extends 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.

ASCO continues to advocate for lawmakers to work together to achieve a bipartisan FY24 federal funding bill and to support cancer research with robust, sustained, and predictable funding for the NIH and NCI. For FY 2024, ASCO is asking Congress to provide $51 billion for the NIH, $9.988 billion for the NCI, and to designate $1.5 billion for the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H).

"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," said Everett E. Vokes, MD, FASCO, Chair of the Board, Association for Clinical Oncology, in a statement. "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."

“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,” Dr. Vokes concluded.

Join ASCO and urge your lawmakers to support cancer research. To send a letter directly to your members of Congress, visit the ACT Network.

Stay up to date on the Association’s advocacy activities and priorities by bookmarking ASCO in Action.