STAT+: Congress is closer than ever to formally authorizing ARPA-H. But the details aren’t as final as they seem

Although health secretary Xavier Becerra declared in March that ARPA-H will be a branch of the NIH, the House bill authorizing the new agency houses it outside the NIH.

WASHINGTON — It seemed like the debate over President Biden’s new high-stakes science agency, ARPA-H, was over.

Congress set aside $1 billion in funding. Cities began to lobby to host the new research office’s headquarters. And health secretary Xavier Becerra settled the lone point of controversy: The new agency, he declared in March, will exist not independently, but as a branch of the National Institutes of Health.

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