Credit: ipopba/Adobe Stock
A federal judge is slowing efforts by the administration of President Donald Trump to cut spending on medical research and other research.
U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley, a judge in the U.S. District for Massachusetts, issued a nationwide injunction suspending efforts by the Trump administration to change the federal research funding formula in a way that would reduce federal research spending by about $4 billion per year.
Recommended For You
The sudden change in funding rules has caused universities like the University of Pennsylvania to rescind many graduate school acceptances for the 2025-2026 academic year or suspend consideration of applications.
Kelley issued the injunction in response to a suit filed by medical associations, universities and state attorneys general.
Most federal research funding supports medical research and related forms of research. Public funding for medical research accounts for about $45 billion in annual spending, or about 1% of U.S. health care spending.
What it means: Reduced federal research funding could help employers by slowing the release of expensive new drugs and medical procedures.
But reduced funding could also hurt employer plans, by hurting efforts to improve the quality of care for conditions like cancer and Alzheimer's disease and new research projects aimed directly at improving the value of care, such as a project to compare how well different treatments for migraine headaches work.
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
Allison Bell
Allison Bell, a senior reporter at ThinkAdvisor and BenefitsPRO, previously was an associate editor at National Underwriter Life & Health. She has a bachelor's degree in economics from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's degree in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She can be reached through X at @Think_Allison.
