NIH chief lobbies for $500M fund to back clinical trials

NIH chief Francis Collins (photo) is lobbying Congress to set aside a half-billion dollar fund that will give start-up biotechs up to $15 million to bankroll clinical trials for new drugs that treat neglected diseases. The initiative marks a strategic shift for the NIH, which has played a big role sponsoring the academic research that often winds up in developers' hands. "We have the chance now to make progress in therapeutics that we really could not have done five or six years ago; we just...