Comment on OMB-2026-0034-0001
Florence HealthcareOpposeBusiness
Summary: Catherine Gregor, Chief Clinical Trial Officer at Florence Healthcare, opposes the proposed rule because it introduces political review and post-award discretion into federal research funding. She argues that these changes will undermine scientific independence, create uncertainty for research institutions, and slow down the biomedical innovation pipeline.
Please find the attached public comment on the proposed rule, Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance.
I submit this comment both in my capacity as Chief Clinical Trial Officer of Florence Healthcare and based on my personal experience working with academic medical centers, research institutions, biotechnology companies, pharmaceutical sponsors, and clinical research teams.
Florence Healthcare shares the concerns outlined in this comment. Florence serves many of the academic and industry research organizations that would be affected by these proposed changes, including academic medical centers, health systems, biotechnology companies, pharmaceutical sponsors, CROs, and clinical research sites.
Together, my view and Florence Healthcare’s view is that the proposed revisions, as applied to federally funded scientific and biomedical research, risk undermining scientific independence, slowing an already lengthy research process, discouraging early-stage discovery, weakening the clinical development pipeline, and making the United States less competitive in global biomedical innovation.