On Apr. 7, 2026, LifeScienceHistory.com, formerly WashingtonLifeScience.com, announces release of a report highlighting the challenges of Washington State’s growing life science industry with proposed National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget cuts.

Washington state is home to a growing life science industry that includes nearly 500 companies, sixty percent more than in 2015, the date of the last report. More than one-quarter are founded on technology from the state’s universities and non-profit research organizations. Most also have some form of ongoing relationship with universities and non-profit organizations, supporting their research.

The Trump Administration’s FY 2026 budget proposal which included a total NIH program level of $27.9 billion, a 42% reduction from the prior year, signaled a major shift in funding priorities, significantly impacting the nation’s universities, non-profit research organization and federal laboratories. The NIH cuts, including a 15% spending cap on indirect costs, harm already stretched budgets with increased laboratory costs, infrastructure, and staff.

More than 83% of the NIH’s funding is awarded to more than 300,000 researchers at more than 2,500 universities, medical schools, and other research institutions in every state, as well as around the world. About 11% of the NIH’s budget supports projects that are conducted within its own laboratories on NIH’s Bethesda Campus.

During FY 2025, Washington’s research universities: the University of Washington, Washington State University, and the state’s largest non-profit research organizations: the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, combined brought $4.5 billion in grant and contract awards into the state. Since 2000, these institutions have brought more than $75 billion into the state.