Opinion: STAT+: The NIH budget should be $100 billion per year

In a STAT opinion piece dated Sept. 21, 2026, Reed Jobs — founder, managing partner, and investor at Yosemite Management, an investment adviser that invests in health care and biotech companies including Revolution Medicines — argues that the NIH budget should be $100 billion per year. He uses the recent approval of Revolution Medicines' daraxonrasib as a central example of why sustained federal research funding matters.

In late August, the Food and Drug Administration approved daraxonrasib for pancreatic cancer in previously treated patients. The drug is described as a revolutionary new therapeutic that targets KRAS inside pancreatic cancers; KRAS is the most commonly mutated oncogene found in the disease. Having that mutation is a very bad sign for a pancreatic cancer patient, often indicating that their case is terminal.

Medicine has known about KRAS for decades, but because of its physical shape, it had been nearly impossible to treat — until daraxonrasib proved for the first time that KRAS could be treated, bound, and stopped, according to Jobs. While pancreatic cancer remains a devastating diagnosis, the therapy nearly doubled the survival rate in a clinical trial, an incredible result for those patients and their families. Jobs concludes by emphasizing that time is priceless.

The excerpt then cuts off at STAT+'s paywall, noting the article is exclusive to subscribers.