Neglected funding
December 3, 2012
GOVERNMENTS worldwide are
increasingly moving away from
funding product development in
favour of supporting basic research,
according to the Neglected disease
R&D: A five-year review.
Conducted by independent
research group Policy Cures and
funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation, the review is the most
comprehensive report to date on
funding of R&D for neglected
diseases, and covers 31 diseases
and 134 product areas.
The five-year review of global
neglected disease research and
development funding found that
whilst Gov’s are still the mainstay
of neglected disease R&D funding,
public funding continues to shift
away from product development
and towards academic basic research:
with basic research increasing by
28% ($124m) over the 5 year study,
whilst public product development
investment declined (down 1%).
According to the report authors,
this trend is troubling because the
sectors that traditionally fund
product development, industry and
philanthropy, have also cut or refocussed
their funding over the
past five years.
“Big pharmaceutical companies
continue to fund across a range of
diseases (incl malaria, diarrhoeal
illnesses, HIV, helminths, salmonella
and kinetoplastids) but their biggest
investments are increasingly into
late-stage product development for
a limited number of semi-commercial
areas such as dengue fever, bacterial
pneumonia & meningitis and
tuberculosis,” the researchers said.
“These three diseases now account
for two-thirds of all industry funding,
up from half in 2008,” the
researchers added.
The above article was sent to subscribers in Pharmacy Daily's issue from 03 Dec 12To see the full newsletter, see the embedded issue below or CLICK HERE to download Pharmacy Daily from 03 Dec 12
