UC San Diego pauses at least five HIV trials as a federal funding deadline stalls new studies
The National Institutes of Health told researchers to hold off on launching studies that cannot finish before funding expires on Nov. 30, 2027. Renewal notices expected in August still have not appeared, and UC San Diego is among the campuses feeling it first.
SAN DIEGO: The University of California, San Diego has paused at least five clinical trials designed to cure or control HIV, the Associated Press reported, after the National Institutes of Health issued guidance telling scientists to hold off on launching new studies. Voice of San Diego's Morning Report flagged the same campus impact on Tuesday, citing the Union-Tribune.
The NIH instruction, delivered on Oct. 2, applies to new studies that had not yet enrolled participants and that would not be complete by Nov. 30, 2027, when the current funding for the federal HIV clinical trial networks is set to expire. Studies already under way are not covered by the pause.
Four networks carry most of that research: the AIDS Clinical Trials Group, now known as Advancing Clinical Therapeutics Globally (ACTG); the HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN); the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN); and the International Maternal Pediatric Adolescent AIDS Clinical Trials Network (IMPAACT), which studies infants, children, adolescents and pregnant people. Together they account for more than $300 million a year, mostly from the federal government, according to the New York Times.
A renewal that has not arrived
The networks' next funding cycle depends on renewal notices that the government had said would be posted by late August. As of Oct. 7 they had not appeared. A federal official said the notices were under review at the Department of Health and Human Services, and HHS has not confirmed whether the renewal process will move forward, though it says the administration plans to keep investing in HIV research that delivers meaningful results.
The Infectious Diseases Society of America and the HIV Medicine Association called the situation out in a joint statement, describing the "ongoing delays in the renewals for the pioneering CFARs and HIV clinical trial networks" as alarming and urging NIH to issue the notices promptly and extend existing awards where needed so ongoing trials are not lost.
What the pause changes, and what it does not
For people already enrolled in a trial, nothing in the instruction changes their care, and participants with questions about visits or medicines are advised to ask their study team. The risk sits further out: large trials take years to design and run, so a study that cannot finish before the November 2027 deadline may now be delayed well beyond it. With IMPAACT focused on children and pregnant people, those groups could wait longer for new evidence on treatment and prevention.
UC San Diego's pause is an early local measure of a national stall. Until the renewal notices move, campuses that run network studies are planning around a funding cliff that is thirteen months away and getting closer.
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