Biotechnology Research Services NAICS 541714

May 2, 2025 - Trump Administration Blocked From Cutting NIH Grants

• A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration’s effort to cut National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant payments. Decreasing NIH grant payments — which pay for research, laboratory overhead, and clinical trials — would introduce new financial risks for small companies that were founded to develop early-stage discoveries, according to industry stakeholders including biomedical researchers, academics, entrepreneurs, and investors contacted by the Washington Post. The Association of American Medical Colleges, alongside the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy, the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health, the Conference of Boston Teaching Hospitals and the Greater New York Hospital Association, filed suit against the NIH in a Massachusetts federal court at the beginning of February. The plaintiffs argued that the NIH’s actions were unlawful and would result in irreparable harm.
• One of the most notable changes in the Trump administration’s plans to reduce National Institutes of Health grant payments is a new NIH policy that would limit its funding of “indirect” costs to 15% of new federal grants, substantially lower than what it typically provides now, according to BioPharma Dive. NIH grant funding helps pay recipients’ “direct” and “indirect” costs for running experiments and conducting research. The former covers expenses, such as salaries and lab supplies, that are directly associated with a research project and accounts for the bulk of NIH grant funding. Indirect costs are the charges that support the infrastructure surrounding these experiments, from utility bills to payments for administrative workers. An estimated $9 billion of the $32 billion in NIH grants issued in the 2024 fiscal year went toward indirect costs, according to an analysis of federal data by The New York Times.

• Big data is playing an increasingly important role in biotechnology research, according to Health Tech Zone. Researchers can gain deeper insights into complex biological processes by aggregating and analyzing large datasets from various sources. The increasing availability of large-scale biological datasets, such as genomic and proteomic data, is transforming the way biotechnology research is conducted and enables a more comprehensive understanding of complex biological systems. This data-driven approach is particularly valuable in areas such as drug discovery and development, where it can help identify potential drug candidates more efficiently. Integrating big data with other technologies like AI and machine learning enhances its impact. These tools can make the research process more streamlined and cost-effective by sifting through enormous datasets to uncover hidden correlations and generate hypotheses that guide further experimentation.
• Biotechnology research industry employment decreased slightly and average wages for nonsupervisory employees decreased moderately during the first month of 2025, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Biotechnology research service industry sales are forecast to grow at a 5.1% compounded annual rate from 2024 to 2028, faster than the growth of the overall economy, according to Inforum and the Interindustry Economic Research Fund, Inc.