In an open letter addressing the Trump administration’s proposed budget cuts to HHS, the executives urged Congress to continue “robust federal funding” for scientific research, which they say will help maintain U.S. biotech leadership globally.
Proposed federal budget cuts to scientific research will have a “catastrophic effect” on the industry and the U.S. at large, strongly impacting its “scientific ecosystem” and its status as a global biotech and biopharma leader, according to an open letter on Friday, penned and endorsed by more than 100 industry leaders.
“Federal funding for scientific research is essential to the sustainability of the biomedical industry, maintaining the United States’ technological edge, and crucial for this country’s ability to protect and strengthen our economic and national security,” the authors continue.
Published on Friday by STAT News, the open letter was signed by 110 CEOs, presidents and chairpersons of various companies across the biopharma ecosystem. Its signatories include John Maraganore, founding CEO of Alnylam, Adam M. Koppel, partner at Bain Capital Life Sciences and Tamar Thompson, board chair of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council.
Reducing investments in research “will have a catastrophic effect on the advancement” of the U.S.’s biomedical capabilities, the letter argues. Instead, it calls on Congress for “continued and robust federal funding of scientific research,” which it contends is needed to “preserve the health of the U.S. scientific ecosystem.”
The Trump administration is planning steep reductions to the Department of Health and Human Services’ budget for the 2026 fiscal year. News of the cuts first broke in April and was confirmed by a Budget in Brief document released last month, which proposes $94.7 billion in discretionary outlay for the Department. The HHS had a budget of nearly $126.1 billion in the 2025 fiscal year.
The savings, according to claims made in the document, will come from streamlining the agency’s services and eliminating redundancies.
As part of its streamlining effort, HHS will consolidate 28 operating divisions down to 15 and close five of its “most costly regional offices.” HHS also plans to reduce its headcount to “roughly 90 percent of our pre-COVID staffing level,” a move that the document claims will save around $3.1 billion per year.
The National Institutes of Health, which is heavily involved in scientific research, will see some of the heaviest budget cuts, with its purse slimming down to $27.5 billion in 2026 from $48.5 billion in 2025. Only the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the National Institute on Aging will remain untouched—all other units will be consolidated, leaving only eight major institutes, down from 15.
The FDA, arguably the most important HHS unit to the biopharma industry, will be left with $6.8 billion, down from $7.2 billion in 2025.
