NIH grant payments and reviews resume after stressful week for Triangle startup leaders
An alert on the federal Payment Management Services website last week unsettled Triangle area founders whose startups rely on research grants. Due to President Donald Trump’s executive orders freezing federal financial assistance programs, the notice said, the government was “taking additional measures to process payments.”
Grant recipients were told to expect funding delays or rejections.
“We have about half a million dollars that were pending reimbursements that we weren’t sure if we were going to get,” said the founder of a Durham health care startup who shared his company’s financials on the condition of anonymity. “It was a panicked week.”
In a Jan. 27 memo, the Trump administration paused federal grant payments as it called for a comprehensive review of financial assistance programs. The order sought to identify programs “consistent with” Trump’s stated policies toward inflation, safety, government efficiency, manufacturing, health, gender identity and stopping “wokeness” and “the weaponization of government.”
The next day, a federal judge temporarily blocked the freeze, and on Jan. 29, the administration rescinded its policy. Reimbursements through Payment Management Services have resumed. The alert at the top of the PMS website has been removed.
“I think the biggest impacts have been just chaos and panic,” said Eva Garland, a business consultant in Raleigh. “It’s particularly difficult when you’ve got time-based research. If it’s in the middle of a trial, do you just stop it today?”
The National Institutes of Health is the nation’s largest provider of bioscience grants, typically awarding over 60,000 a year. North Carolina received close to $2 billion through NIH research grants in 2024, with more than half that money split between Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill. Only five other states received more NIH funds.
Program supporters say these payments help bridge the so-called “valley of death” researchers face when turning promising concepts into revenue-generating businesses. “You’ve got this great idea that looks beautiful in a petri dish,” Garland said. “But nobody’s going to invest (privately) yet because the risk is still too high.”
Besides payment reimbursements, the NIH grant approval process has also been disrupted during the first weeks of the new administration. To receive a grant, applicants first have their projects reviewed by a panel of scientists called a study section. On Jan. 22, the NIH began to cancel these panels, which halted new grant awards. Scientists scheduled to sit on upcoming sections were told they might not happen.
“We’ve heard nothing in terms of whether we’re on the docket,” said Taub Swartz, chief financial officer of the Raleigh startup Karamedica, which has applied for an NIH grant to fund research into treating Alzheimer’s-related diseases
On Feb. 4, the NIH held its first study section since the pause. And on Wednesday, the agency confirmed to The News & Observer it has resumed hosting scientific review groups for grant applicants.
This story was originally published February 5, 2025 at 4:47 PM with the headline "NIH grant payments and reviews resume after stressful week for Triangle startup leaders."
