New Report: Strategic NIH Funding Would Grow U.S. Economy

Targeted investment in NIH’s patent hubs would generate approximately 0.24 percent annual growth in GDP

NEW YORK, NY – President Trump’s proposed cuts to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) left many advocates worried for the future of medical research. A new paper from the Manhattan Institute shows that NIH research is valuable not only for its primary purpose of discovering new ways to improve health, but also for growing the American economy.

Authors Michael J. Kalutkiewicz of belle+preuve public affairs and Richard L. Ehman of the Mayo Clinic examine the number of patents attained by the NIH’s institutes and centers and find that a number of programs are highly productive, including many that have relatively modest overall budgets within the NIH. They argue that small but strategic changes to budget allocation could boost overall patent productivity significantly.

Kalutkiewicz and Ehman propose a new budget model where scientific priorities remain paramount, but that also allocates additional funding to the high-performing patent centers. Such a model would cost approximately $6 billion over five years—less than 4 percent per year above NIH’s baseline budget. The authors estimate that the expected increase in overall U.S. patent supply would grow GDP by 0.24 percent per year, create 230,000 jobs, and reduce the deficit by more than $800 billion over 10 years.

Click here to read the full report.