JSC Chair Questions Proposal to Double the SBIR

October 26, 2007

The Honorable Evan Bayh
U.S. Senator
Senate Russell 131
Washington, D.C. 20510

Dear Senator Bayh,

I am writing on behalf of the Joint Steering Committee for Public Policy (JSC) to express our concerns regarding S. 1932 and its intent to double the percentage of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget earmarked for the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and the Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs.

The SBIR/STTR programs were established at the NIH with the goal of helping to transform the basic laboratory and patient-oriented research conducted by NIH-funded academic scientists into important applications, by funding competitive grants to relatively small, for-profit laboratories around the country. The JSC believes that the SBIR/STTR programs have become an important component of the NIH mission to advance public health through science. However, we contend that the case for doubling the SBIR/STTR set-aside from its current 2.5% level to 5% is not convincing and that the proposed change would adversely affect the ability of the NIH to support other important components of its portfolio at a time when the agency’s spending power is shrinking.

As you no doubt know, since the doubling of the NIH budget ended in 2003, funding for the NIH has failed to keep pace with biomedical inflation. As a result, in the intervening years, NIH funding has lost more than 12% of its purchasing power. With a continued rise in the number of grant applications from academic investigators, the lack of recent budgetary growth at the NIH has driven the success rates for those investigators, new and old, to unacceptably low levels. Thus, while applications for NIH research project grants have increased by 32% from 2003 to 2006, the number of awards has dropped by 12% and the overall success rate for applicants has fallen from an excess of 30% to 20% or lower depending on the Institute.1

In contrast, the number of new grant applications submitted to the NIH for the SBIR/STTR programs has decreased by 40% in the same period. Because of the mandatory 2.5% set-aside, the SBIR/STTR programs have been awarding grants to applicants whose proposals scored significantly lower in peer review than many applications from academic investigators that could not be funded. On average, SBIR/STTR award applicants received priority scores of 189, and it is very common for a Phase 1 grant to receive a score of above 250. (In contrast, the average priority score required for funding a research project grant in 2006 was 151. )

In light of this situation, any increase in the percentage of the NIH budget earmarked for support of the SBIR/STTR programs would diminish the already scarce NIH funds available for investigators in other categories, and such increases would likely reduce the overall quality of work supported by the NIH. For these reasons, we urge you to reconsider S. 1932. Furthermore, we recommend that before any changes are made in the allocation of resources for the NIH’s SBIR/STTR programs, a review of those programs should be conducted.

The JSC appreciates the commitment you have shown to the NIH and the nation’s medical research efforts. We look forward to working with you to promote the highest quality research critical to our nation's health.

Sincerely,

Harold Varmus, M.D.
Chair, Joint Steering Committee for Public Policy
President, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Former Director, National Institutes of Health
1989 Nobel Laureate in Medicine

The JSC is a coalition of six nonprofit, science-based organizations, representing over 70,000 scientists, that have joined together to make the case for sound federal policies for biomedical research.

1AAAS R&D report for the NIH in the FY2008 budget; Kei Koizumi, Director, R&D Budget and Policy Program; AAAS