White House Proposes $1B for Cancer ‘Moonshoot'

The White House will propose spending close to $1 billion over the next two years on a "moonshot" to fight cancer, officials said Monday.

President Barack Obama will ask Congress for $755 million for fiscal year 2017, and will try to spend $195 million this year to get things started, NBC News reported.

Obama announced the plan last month during his State of the Union address. The goal is to better coordinate research efforts to make inroads against the No. 2 killer in the U.S.

Most of the money will go to the National Institutes of Health, which pays for and conducts medical research, senior administration officials said. Obama's budget will also propose more money for the Department of Defense and Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

"In fact, just today we announced a new $1 billion jumpstart to make sure some of the best work going on has the funding that it needs," Vice President Joe Biden, who's in overall charge of the program, said in a blog post.

Contact Us