Medical Research Funding Survives as Democrats Cut Covid Money

President Joe Biden’s proposed new biomedical research entity would receive $1 billion under the congressional spending plan released Wednesday.

The research funding survived a last-minute cut of $15 billion for Covid testing and treatment supplies. The Senate expects to finalize the spending bill (H.R. 2471) next week. The current funding law expires Friday but the House is expected to pass a four-day stopgap to avoid a government shutdown and give the Senate time to deal with the omnibus legislation.

The money for the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, or ARPA-H, comes almost a year after Biden first ...