The new National Institutes of Health policy would strip research groups of hundreds of millions of dollars to cover so-called indirect expenses of studying Alzheimer’s, cancer, heart disease and a host of other illnesses — anything from clinical trials of new treatments to basic lab research that is the foundation for discoveries.

A federal judge in Massachusetts temporarily blocked the cuts from taking effect earlier this month in response to separate lawsuits filed by a group of 22 states plus organizations representing universities,