Maryland is suing the Trump administration to stop a drastic cost-cutting measure that could cost Johns Hopkins, the University of Maryland and other universities in the state hundreds of millions of dollars in lost research-related funding.

The funding at risk from the National Institutes of Health pays for so-called indirect costs. Those are expenses added on to federally funded biomedical research grants to help support the people, labs and equipment not directly related to specific research, but that help make such work possible.

NIH said Friday it would immediately limit that additional indirect funding to 15% of the grant totals, far below the previously negotiated figures at Hopkins and many other institutions that exceeded 50%. According to NIH, the government agency last year spent $35 billion, of which $9 billion was used for administrative overhead costs.

“Maryland’s research institutions have pioneered treatments that have saved countless lives, but they can’t do this vital work without proper funding,” said Attorney General Anthony Brown in a statement announcing the suit filed along with 21 other states in the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts.

“This decision not only jeopardizes Maryland jobs and our state’s position as a global leader in medical research, but it also delays or denies potentially lifesaving discoveries that could help our loved ones.” (On Monday evening, the court issued a temporary restraining order on NIH, freezing cuts on indirect costs in the 22 states that filed the suit.)

NIH is the nation’s largest funder of medical research and Hopkins is frequently the largest recipient of the funds, receiving about $857 million in direct grant funding in fiscal 2024, according to federal data. The University of Maryland, Baltimore, received close to $200 million, and others received millions more.

The directive comes on top of others from the Trump administration that could curtail medical research and cut health care spending and jobs in Maryland and beyond.

Officials say there isn’t an immediate replacement source of indirect funding.

On the social media site X, NIH highlighted the relative wealth of some of the universities affected, including Hopkins. But Dr. Bruce Jarrell, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore, said most of his university’s endowment money is designated by donors for scholarships or other specific uses. Foundations can’t make up the funding, and universities like his already put substantial funds toward research, he added.

Jarrell said his campus would lose about $40 million to $50 million a year if the cuts stand.

“The funds pay for all the things necessary to do science, and without it, we can’t compete,” he said. “We won’t be able to recruit or buy the latest equipment. But no one here will.” He added that the cuts will make the U.S. less competititve on the global stage.

Hopkins officials also said they were unsure about how much the university would be affected, but noted the potential for impacts beyond the campus.

“Like many universities and medical schools across the country, we are reviewing the announcement from NIH to assess its impact, but we are profoundly concerned about the potential consequences for scientific and medical research in the United States,” Hopkins said in a statement Monday.

“The targeted funds pay for the essential tools, facilities, and support personnel that make research possible, sustaining laboratories to house experiments, electricity to keep centrifuges spinning, and computers to protect clinical data behind life-saving medical treatments.”

In previous years, NIH has added from 30% to 70% on top of the cost of the grants to account for overhead expenses.

For Hopkins, NIH added about 64% to last year’s grants. The University of Maryland, Baltimore’s funding for indirect costs was 55%. Jarrell said the calculations were complicated, but he estimated that the state would lose hundreds of millions of dollars under the Trump cut.

The cuts will affect research universities across the nation, which often are among their region’s largest employers. If there are job cuts, the ripple effects could be substantial.

State economic development leaders last week said threats to NIH funding could harm spinoff life science companies that are based on university research.

State records show there are about 3,600 life science nonprofits and companies in the state and 50,000 direct jobs. Mark Anthony Thomas, president and CEO of the Greater Baltimore Committee, called federal investment a “critical driver.”

For the whole state, Maryland universities received more than $2.4 billion in NIH grants last year. That was just behind funding for several other states, including Texas and North Carolina, agency data shows. The largest recipient in Texas was Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, which received more than $326 million in grants last year. In North Carolina, the largest recipient was Duke University in Durham, with more than $580 million in grants.

North Carolina joined the suit with Maryland, but Texas did not.

Brown said the cuts violate the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs how agencies create and enforce regulations. He said Congress also added statutory requirements specifically to prevent cuts to research reimbursements after the first Trump administration sought to cut funding.

Brown said the coalition is seeking a court order barring implementation of the changes.

Baltimore Banner reporter Ellie Wolfe contributed to this report.