Publications: Sandra Barbosu

The United States risks a serious brain drain as NIH funding cuts, canceled grants, and program rollbacks push early-career scientists abroad, threatening America’s long-term biomedical capacity, innovation leadership, and national competitiveness unless policymakers act to stabilize and strengthen research support.

NIH-funded research supports the foundation for industry to develop vaccines and therapies, exemplifying deep public-private R&D complementarity. As global competition intensifies, expanding NIH funding will be key to protecting American health, supporting U.S. biopharmaceutical competitiveness, and ensuring national power and security.

Strict data privacy laws like the GDPR have significantly reduced biopharmaceutical R&D investment—especially among smaller firms—highlighting the need for U.S. policymakers to reform HIPAA, pass innovation-friendly federal privacy legislation, and invest in privacy-enhancing technologies to protect both privacy and progress in medical research.

The White House’s AI Action Plan highlights how upgrading labs, data infrastructure, and research models is essential to unlock AI’s full potential in accelerating drug discovery and keeping the United States at the forefront of biopharmaceutical innovation.

Obesity affects over 42 percent of U.S. adults, costing the nation more than $400 billion annually. Traditional weight-loss methods alone have proved to be insufficient in addressing this growing public health burden. But GLP-1 receptor agonists now offer the potential to profoundly transform obesity care. Public policies should support their wider adoption.

A cornerstone of U.S. biopharmaceutical leadership, PDUFA has dramatically accelerated drug approvals and patient access, but looming FDA budget cuts threaten to unravel three decades of progress.

Microgravity could be the next big breakthrough in drug development, but only if policymakers act now to turn space-based research from potential into progress.

The United States shoulders the cost of global drug innovation—unless wealthy nations pay their fair share, future cures will stall.

To stay ahead in biopharma and ensure new therapies work for everyone, the U.S. must fix the diversity gap in biomedical research.

Follow-on biopharmaceutical innovations deliver substantial health and economic benefits by improving the safety and efficacy of existing therapies, addressing unmet patient needs, expanding therapeutic applications, and enhancing adherence. Supportive policies are essential to sustain progress and ensure broad access to these medical advances.