Study Finds that Funding for Life Sciences Research Continues to Wane
Ed Silverman, over at the newly reinvigorated Pharmalot Blog, today reported that a recent study publicized in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that, after a decade of doubling, the rate of increase in biomedical research funding slowed from 2003 to 2007, and after adjusted for inflation, the absolute level of funding from the National Institutes of Health and industry appears to have decreased by 2 percent. The NIH remains the largest federal contributor to biomedicalresearch, accounting for 84% of total federal funding in 2007
Further, the report indicated that research funding provided by pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and medical devices and diagnostics manufacturers rose from $40 billion in 2003 to $58.6 billion in 2007; an increase (adjusted for inflation) of roughly 25 percent. Most of the funding came from large pharmaceutical companies. Interestingly, however, the sector of the life sciences industry that exhibited the greatest increase in growth over the same period was diagnostic and device makers (59 percent), followed by biotechnology (41 per cent) and lastly, pharmaceutical companies (25 per cent).
While the results of the study are not surprising, it is clear that the life science sector is beginning to focus more on device and diagnostics than on small molecules and even biotechnology products. Further, reductions in federal funding are forcing researchers to increasingly rely on grants and contracts from private sector companies. This suggests that an ever expanding percentage of the research conducted at many academic institutions will be financed and underwritten by for profit companies. Although more product-focused academic research is not necessarily a bad idea, it does call into question the direction and possible breadth of academic research and the availability and sharing of important scientific information, data sets and discoveries.
Until next time...
Good Luck and Good Grant Writing!!!!!!!!!
