NIH chief sidesteps controversy while other officials court it
Read the full article in Axios
National Institutes of Health director Jay Bhattacharya didn’t aggressively push back and defend Trump administration budget cuts and grant freezes when senators grilled him last week about plans for his agency.
- An $18 billion cut in the 2026 NIH budget request was just a starting point for negotiations, he said.
Why it matters: The hearing showed how the former Stanford professor is trying to deflect controversy over the administration’s health agenda while others on President Trump’s health team under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have leaned into their roles as disruptors.
- That’s raising questions about who has the final say over the government’s biomedical research hub.
- Bhattacharya is “in a difficult position with limited influence,” Capital Alpha Partners analyst Rob Smith wrote in a note on Friday. “RFK appears to be running the show at the subagencies he oversees as HHS Secretary. It’s our understanding that very little happens without his input.”
What they’re saying: An HHS spokesperson told Axios that NIH and Bhattacharya are fully committed to advancing research, improving health outcomes and supporting scientific discovery. Constructive criticism pushes this innovation forward, they said.
The big picture: NIH is the largest public payer of biomedical research in the world. It funds academic research and develops and funds much of the science behind products that drug companies eventually commercialize. The Trump budget’s plan to cut its funding 40% next year could kneecap pharma and the biotech industry.
State of play: Bhattacharya tried to find a middle ground during the Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, taking credit for fighting what he called “politicized science” while telling lawmakers he didn’t accept the job to terminate grants.
- “This is my first time through this budget fight, and so I’m still learning, but I’ll tell you what I understand is that this — the budget — is a collaborative effort between Congress and the administration,” Bhattacharya said.
- “We have tremendous health needs that we have to address. It’s only excellent research that’s going to solve those problems,” he said.
- His written testimony didn’t mention the cuts, instead laying out the administration’s policy priorities for NIH and the funding they are requesting.
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- “I think Dr. Bhattacharya wants NIH to continue to set the pace for medical progress, but what matters is whether he acts on intention and stops the dismantling of American-led research,” Ellie Dehoney, senior vice president of policy and advocacy at Research!America, told Axios in an email.
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