New Opportunities to Fund Lymphoma Research:
The Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program
 
This year the Lymphoma Research Foundation (LRF) advocates will contribute to an important effort to seek a new source of federal funding for lymphoma research.
 
The Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program (CDMRP) was established within the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to facilitate the expansion of federal biomedical research. Since 1992, the CDMRP has managed approximately $4.6 billion in federal funds for peer-reviewed research aimed to prevent, control and cure disease. The Program has been successful in funding high impact research on a number of cancer types (including chronic myelogenous leukemia) and other chronic diseases.

For several years LRF and the blood cancer community have proposed that Congress expand the CDMRP to include a dedicated blood cancer program. Blood cancer research has been funded on an ad hoc basis through a general fund that is part of the CDMRP, but the manner in which this research has been supported does not provide stable funding.
 
LRF will work to create a stand-alone blood cancer research program at DoD in the coming year, when Congress will have the opportunity to support the establishment of a $25 million blood cancer research portfolio through the CDMRP. This program would fund research on Hodgkin lymphoma, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, leukemia and multiple myeloma. LRF will ask supporters, through the Foundation's Public Policy and Advocacy Program, to urge their representatives in Congress to support this vital new program.