Senate Appropriations hearing spotlights Special Diabetes Program as advocates press Congress to renew research funding

Chairwoman Susan Collins convened the Senate Appropriations Committee hearing and welcomed more than 170 delegates from Breakthrough T1D’s Children’s Congress, introducing three young witnesses and Dr. Griff Rogers, director of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK).

The most urgent message from the panel was that continued federal funding for the Special Diabetes Program (SDP) is needed to sustain recent clinical advances and to support trials now aiming at prevention and biological cures. Chairwoman Collins said the SDP “must be extended” before it expires in September and urged advocates to ask members to cosponsor reauthorization legislation she and Senator Jeanne Shaheen introduced.

Why it matters: SDP-supported research has led to multiple practical advances cited in testimony: FDA-authorized artificial pancreas systems that have become standard of care for many people with type 1 diabetes, an FDA-approved preventive therapy (teplizumab) that can delay clinical onset by…