Research Funding and the Financial Crisis

[tcmgpt13]

After reading the article posted below I am more convinced than ever that orphan diseases, such as Morgellons will remain under researched, ignored and neglected because so far most diagnosed cases are in Western countries. The majority of money available for medical research is dwindling with the world wide econmomic crisis, although some developing countries (Brazil and India) are now starting to fund medical research to cure their own domestically important diseases. Finally some countries have it right. So when developing nations have enough money of their own for research it appears they choose to research diseases important to the health of their own populations not those of other countries. This is a concept which seems to have been forgotten by Western countries and Western governments who vie to fund research for developing countries while neglecting research into neglected diseases in their own populations.

Currently the Gates Foundation is funding 21% of the world wide research for orphan diseases in developing countries. Meanwhile I have not heard anything at all about the Gates Foundation researching orphan diseases in the US. No, the talk all seems to be about developing countries and their diseases. The question is will developing countries someday return the favor to the impoverished populations of Western countries? If socialist policies of government control continue to squash innovation and the ability to make money which will necessarily limit medical research it will soon be Western countries who have no money, few doctors and even fewer medical researchers. Some Western countries have already arrived at this destination. Now it looks as if the US is rapidly headed towards the first station.

Funding for research and development and the financial crisis
Original Text
Mary Moran

The January, 2010, editorial in The Lancet Infectious Diseases noted that neglected diseases are the most common diseases for the 2·7 billion people living on less than US$2 per day, and suggested that their long-term management is likely to rely on control or elimination measures, rather than eradication.1 Pharmaceutical approaches, including drugs, vaccines, insecticides, and biological control agents, are an integral part of control and elimination but they must be updated to maintain their efficacy in the face of resistance and, in other cases, are yet to be created.

The G-FINDER studies are a 5-year series of reports analysing the global funding dedicated to the task of creating and updating pharmaceutical tools for neglected diseases. The first G-FINDER report showed that slightly more than US$2·5 billion was spent worldwide on neglected disease research and development in 2007.2 The second G-FINDER report, launched in India on the Dec 15, 2009, showed that funding for neglected disease research and development was $2.96 billion in 20083 (reported in 2007 US$); however, the bulk of this apparent upturn was due to inclusion of data from new survey participants.

When data from new participants was excluded, global funding for neglected disease research and development had ground to a standstill in 2008, with most funders either freezing or decreasing their investments. Aggregate investment was down $31·3 million for governments, $0·1 million for multilaterals, and $23·0 million for the private pharmaceutical industry. The saving grace in this picture was a 36·5% ($164·9 million) increase in funding by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as modest increases by a handful of others, which resulted in a net global increase in investment in neglected disease research and development of $100·1 million in 2008. The Gates Foundation is now responsible for 21% of global funding for neglected disease research and development, although this impressive growth rate is likely to dwindle in view of the Foundation's announcement that their expenditure would likely grow by only about 10% in 2009 because of the financial crisis.4

In the public sector, early signs of the financial crisis were apparent in Europe, where aid agencies such as Irish Aid, the Belgian Development Cooperation and the Dutch Directorate General of Development Cooperation all reported substantial decreases in funding in 2008. These cuts highlight the vulnerability of financing research and development from official development assistance budgets, which are often one of the first areas to suffer when funding is tight.

The growing role of innovative developing countries in global neglected disease research and development was also evident despite the global financial crisis. Two such countries, Brazil and India, were among the top five government funders for the first time, contributing $36·8 million and $32·5 million respectively in 2008.3 Although it is early days, innovative developing countries and industry were already the major drivers of new product development in several disease areas including pneumonia and meningitis (nearly 60% of global research and development funding), leprosy (51%), and dengue fever (46%), as well as providing 20% of global funding for new treatments and vaccines for diarrhoeal illnesses, tuberculosis, and malaria. This trend reflects both local disease patterns and growing ability to buy and to develop neglected disease products needed domestically.

Overall industry funding was up from $231·9 million to $365·3 million, but this was almost entirely because of increased data capture in the 2008 survey. If data from new participants were excluded, very different trends came to light. Multinational companies maintained funding, spending $186·6 million in 2008 compared with $185·7 in 2007; however, small firms showed a very different pattern, almost halving their investment from $46·2 in 2007 to $22·3 in 2008.3 This is perhaps unsurprising, given the greater vulnerability of small firms to the global financial crisis, but the question remains as to whether existing research and development mechanisms, such as the product development partnerships, and recently announced financial incentives, such as the advanced market commitment and the priority review voucher, will be sufficiently substantial to maintain industry investment in neglected disease research and development.

It will be interesting to see whether the trends of growing investment from developing countries and decreasing funding from official development assistance will be borne out in the next G-FINDER report, due this year.

The George Institute has received a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, sponsors of the G-FINDER project.

The Lancet Infectious Diseases, Volume 10, Issue 4, Pages 214 - 215, April 2010