Sponsors (10)
Introduced April 8, 2025 by Richard Blumenthal · Last progress April 8, 2025
The bill channels new federal funding, coordination, and outreach toward accelerating brain tumor research, trials, and survivorship care—improving options and equity for patients—but it increases taxpayer costs, administrative burdens, and data/privacy and implementation risks that could limit benefits or shift resources from other priorities.
Patients with brain tumors (adult and pediatric) gain substantially increased, targeted research funding and dedicated grant programs (including $60M/year for cellular immunotherapy work) to accelerate development of new treatments and diagnostics.
More patients will have improved access to and awareness of clinical trials — through outreach campaigns, culturally competent engagement in rural/high‑risk communities, expanded trial eligibility guidance, and better trial coordination — increasing enrollment and opportunities to receive advanced therapies.
Brain tumor survivors gain funded pilot programs and grants to build lifelong survivorship care models — multidisciplinary care coordination, psychosocial services, peer support, and tools to transfer treatment summaries — improving long‑term quality of life and continuity of care.
Taxpayers fund several new initiatives (notably $60M/year for immunotherapy through 2030, $5M/year for survivorship pilots, and $10M total for outreach), increasing federal spending that could raise the deficit or displace other health research and services.
New reporting, grant application, and program-administration requirements create administrative burdens for researchers, small biobanks, institutions, and federal staff — and noncompliance risks (including withholding NIH funds) could disrupt research and jobs.
Public reporting of specimen locations and increased use of AI/ML and electronic tools raise privacy, proprietary, and data‑accuracy risks for donors, survivors, and providers if protections are inadequate.
Based on analysis of 12 sections of legislative text.
Requires NIH biospecimen reporting and a public locator; funds glioblastoma and cellular immunotherapy programs; funds outreach and survivor-care pilots; directs FDA guidance to broaden trial access.
Creates new federal programs and requirements to speed brain tumor research, improve patient access to trials and biomarker testing, expand survivorship care, and increase public awareness. It requires NIH to publish a searchable public listing of NIH-funded brain tumor biospecimen collections and to enforce reporting, directs NCI to fund coordinated glioblastoma and cellular immunotherapy research programs, authorizes demonstration grants for outreach and survivor care, and directs FDA to issue guidance to reduce unnecessary exclusions of brain tumor patients from clinical trials.