Sponsors (15)
This bill boosts targeted research, trial access, survivorship care, and coordination for people with brain tumors—potentially accelerating therapies and improving support—while imposing new federal costs, administrative burdens, privacy risks, and the possibility of diverting resources or benefits away from smaller providers and other research areas.
People with brain tumors (adult and pediatric) will get increased, targeted federal research funding and programs (including glioblastoma and pediatric immunotherapy efforts) aimed at accelerating development of new treatments and early‑phase trials.
Researchers and scientific teams will gain faster, more coordinated access to biospecimens, dedicated grant funding, and standardized reporting, enabling multi‑institutional studies and more efficient use of samples.
Patients, caregivers, and clinicians will have better information about clinical trials and biomarkers, plus targeted clinician education and guidance to design more inclusive eligibility criteria, improving trial awareness and participation opportunities.
All taxpayers will face increased federal spending (notably roughly $60M/yr for targeted research plus additional authorizations) that could add to deficits or require tradeoffs with other priorities.
Researchers, collection holders, and health systems will incur added administrative burdens (biospecimen reporting deadlines, new program compliance) and risk interruptions to funding if reporting requirements are not met.
Patients and participants could face privacy and data‑security risks from public biospecimen listings and use of AI/ML tools unless metadata protections and safeguards are strong.
Based on analysis of 12 sections of legislative text.
Authorizes NIH and HHS programs to inventory brain tumor biospecimens, fund glioblastoma and cellular immunotherapy networks, support survivor care pilots, run a national trials/biomarker awareness campaign, and require FDA guidance to reduce trial exclusion.
Official title: Advance research to achieve medical breakthroughs in brain tumor treatment and improve awareness and adequacy of specialized cancer and brain tumor care.
Introduced April 8, 2025 by Richard Blumenthal · Last progress April 8, 2025
Creates a coordinated federal effort to accelerate brain tumor research, improve access to trials and biomarker testing, and strengthen care and survivorship support. The bill requires NIH to publish and maintain a public inventory of NIH-funded brain tumor biospecimen collections, funds new multi-institutional research networks and cellular immunotherapy programs for glioblastoma and other brain tumors, supports pilot programs for survivor monitoring and care coordination, mandates an HHS/FDA guidance to reduce trial exclusion of brain tumor patients, and directs a national awareness campaign about clinical trials and biomarker testing. It authorizes multiyear funding for the new research networks, immunotherapy program, awareness campaign, and survivor-care pilot grants.