The Trump Administration has made serious budget cuts to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a move that could have devastating impacts on North Carolina’s economy and medical research as a whole.
NIH provides grants to universities and research institutions, helping fund clinical trials and treatments for cancer, heart disease, and more.
Under orders from the White House, the agency announced it would slash indirect cost rates – which help fund labs, infrastructure, and utility costs critical to biomedical research – to 15%. For reference, large institutions like Duke and UNC Chapel Hill have historically been funded at a rate of more than 55%.
In 2024 alone, North Carolina organizations were granted more than a billion dollars from NIH. Though universities get a majority of North Carolina’s NIH funding, many NC research companies get grants from the government. The third largest recipient of NIH funding in North Carolina is the Research Triangle Institute, which employs 6,000 staff in 90 countries.
From Wilmington to Winston-Salem, biomedical research has become a driving force for North Carolina’s economy. The Triangle region alone has about 4,000 tech and 600 life science companies. The consistent growth of the research industry has attracted other large companies like Apple, Meta, Novo Nordisk, and Amazon, which are expanding their operations in the state.
North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson joined 21 other Attorneys General in filing suit against the proposed NIH cuts, leading to a US District Judge issuing a temporary restraining order to block the cuts from taking effect.
“This attempt to slash funding for research awards that have already been granted violates the law and would cost North Carolina’s public universities hundreds of millions of dollars every year going forward,” said AG Jackson.
“It would permanently diminish higher education in our state and severely damage many of our state’s core industries, causing major layoffs. The court was right to stop this federal overreach, and I’ll keep fighting to protect our state’s economic future”.
