Health care negotiations on Capitol Hill are clear as mud

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Bertagnolli’s burgeoning NIH agenda

Monica Bertagnolli is just two months into directing the $48 billion NIH, but she has a laundry list of challenges ahead of her. The agency is staring down potential budget cuts, ongoing interrogations of its infectious disease work, and a balancing act with advocates pressing for price controls on federally-funded drugs.

The veteran oncologist and former NCI director sat down with STAT in a far-ranging interview to discuss her priorities and those battles ahead. Bertagnolli said she welcomes the scrutiny of controversial infectious disease studies and questions about whether the agency has made any progress on long Covid, but also defended NIAID’s work amid ratcheting Republican demands for better oversight and even bans on gain-of-function research.

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