The following is an excerpt from a Boston Business Journal originally published on May 6, 2025:
The state’s life sciences trade group is warning that federal funding cutbacks to NIH research funding, FDA staffing and trade threaten U.S. biotech dominance, which especially hurts Massachusetts.
A new report released Tuesday by MassBio found that every $1 million of federal NIH funding coming into Massachusetts creates $2.56 million of economic activity and 8.2 jobs. With $680 million in biomedical research funding at risk in the Bay State and an additional $2.26 billion frozen at Harvard University, the economic impact of federal funding cuts would be huge for the state.
MassBio CEO Kendalle Burlin O’Connell said that “without policy stability and renewed investment, we will cede leadership in a sector that defines the future of medicine, creates high-wage jobs, and safeguards our economic and national security.”
NIH funding is a key component of biotech and the drug development process. These funds primarily go to hospitals and academic institutes to fund early-stage research that is later spun out into companies. MassBio found that 99% of drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration from 2010 to 2019 relied on some NIH funding, with an average of $600 million in NIH funds spent per approval.
In addition to NIH funding cuts, the report called out FDA layoffs and pharmaceutical tariffs as the other key threats to the industry.