CBO finds health agency cuts would result in fewer new drugs

Ariel Cohen, CQ-Roll Call on Jul 18, 2025

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WASHINGTON — The Trump administration’s proposed cuts at the National Institutes of Health and Food and Drug Administration could lower the number of new drugs that come to market in the next three decades, according to an analysis released Friday by the Congressional Budget Office.

Under hypothetical scenarios of a permanent 10 percent budget cut to the NIH and a nine-month drug review delay at the FDA due to staffing cuts, an estimated 53 drugs would not come to market over that time span, the budget office found. The analysis, requested by Senate and House Democrats, will likely become a main talking point for them during the fiscal 2026 appropriations process.

“The United States’ effort to bring cutting-edge treatments to patients with cancers, rare diseases, cardiovascular diseases, and neurodegenerative diseases, will come to a grinding halt because of the Trump Administration’s devastating cuts to NIH and FDA funding,” Sens. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Reps. Frank Pallone Jr., D-N.J., and Brendan F. Boyle, D-Pa., said in a statement.

The analysis assessed the impact of funding cuts on NIH preclinical research, or research conducted before clinical trials begin. It found that a 10% cut would result in 4.5% fewer new drugs coming to market. The impact would start small but grow over the 30-year period, CBO found, and take full effect in the third decade after the reduction begins, totaling about 30 drugs for the full span.

A reduction in other components of the NIH’s budget would further decrease the number of new drugs coming to market, but the CBO did not assess that effect.

The White House has proposed even more drastic cuts than what the CBO used in its estimate. President Donald Trump’s fiscal 2026 budget proposes about a 40% cut to the NIH at the program level, from roughly $46 billion in fiscal 2025 to $27.9 billion in fiscal 2026. The budget office said it could not provide an estimate of a cut that drastic using its current models, because such a budget reduction would be unprecedented.

The Democratic lawmakers said the analysis proves that the administration’s cuts would not only hurt patients, but also the economy. For every $1 invested in NIH research, $2.50 is returned to the U.S. economy, they said, citing outside analysis.

The budget office also assessed a hypothetical situation in which staffing reductions at the FDA result in a nine-month increase in the time it takes the agency to review new drug applications, finding that such delays would prevent 23 additional drugs from coming to market in the same three-decade period.

Roughly 3,500 FDA staffers, or about 15% of the workforce, have been laid off by the Trump administration or quit their job in recent months.

The increase in new drug application review times would raise the cost to develop new drugs, the budget office found, and this increase would grow over time and result in a 2% reduction in new drug applications.

“NIH will continue to fulfill its mission to improve human health and be responsive to its Congressional appropriations,” the agency said in a statement. “However, we are unable to comment on ongoing budget processes.”

The FDA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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