FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, January 7, 2026
Contact: nahmed@ncdoj.gov
919-538-2809
RALEIGH – On Monday, the First Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an injunction preventing the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from unlawfully cutting billions in cutting-edge medical and public health research at universities and research institutions across the country. Attorney General Jackson and a coalition of attorneys general initially won the injunction on the day the unlawful cuts were supposed to become effective in February.
“The court agreed that this was federal overreach that would have unlawfully blocked hundreds of millions of dollars in health care funding for North Carolina,” said Attorney General Jeff Jackson. “That funding supports lifesaving treatments, clinical trials, and patient care across our state, and the court made clear the federal government can’t cut it unlawfully.”
North Carolina organizations received more than $1 billion in NIH funding in fiscal year 2024. If the cuts had gone through, the state would have lost hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
In February, the NIH announced it would abruptly slash indirect cost rates – which pay for costs that cover multiple research projects, like helping fund labs, infrastructure, and utility costs critical to biomedical research – to an across-the-board 15 percent rate. This cut would have made it nearly impossible for cutting-edge medical research to continue. Lifesaving and life-extending clinical trials would have been suspended, research would be disrupted, labs would close, and hundreds of North Carolinians would be laid off. According to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NIH grants and contracts directly supported over 25,000 jobs and spurred $5.34 billion in economic activity in North Carolina in FY2023.
Attorney General Jackson took legal action because federal law prohibits categorical and indiscriminate changes to NIH indirect cost reimbursements. A trial court issued a temporary restraining order followed by a preliminary injunction and a permanent injunction earlier this year, and the appeals court upheld the permanent injunction this week.
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