Who pays for scientific research in the medical and life science fields? Your first inclination is to probably think that it’s you and me, the taxpayers of countries who pay for this type of research. There are other sources for research including pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, and they also produce a large amount of basic, as well as applied research.
How much of this research should be funded by government versus private foundations or private sponsors? This is a complex question and should be discussed more frequently than it is by most policymakers.
Here are the top types of sources of funding, in no particular order.
Government funding – In Western countries there are multiple government agencies that fund research at universities, research institutions and government research labs. In the U.S. and Europe, this funding has been flat over the past few years. In emerging economies, such as China and Brazil, this type of funding is seeing double-digit growth.
Private Company Research – In 2011, members of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), which includes many multinational companies, spent approximately $50 billion on R&D efforts. That’s the cost of basic research, clinical trials, and other research efforts to bring drugs to market. In comparison, the U.S. National Institutes of Health funding for medical and clinical research in 2011 was $30.6 billion.
Private Research Foundations – Many private research foundations have been created by non-profits, corporate alliances, or private individuals. The most famous that I know of is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The Gates Foundation funds malaria vaccine research, HIV research, and neglected tropical disease research, to name a few. In 2011, the Gates Foundation spent nearly $2 billion on global health efforts, much of it basic research. There are many other research foundations and too many for me to list in a short blog article. Several others are the Keck Foundation, Howard Hughes Medical Institutes, American Association for Cancer Research andmany other small and large foundations are there to fund research.
Private Individuals – In the past, before the mid-twentieth century, many scientists looked for private sponsors to fund their research. Although, research was much cheaper back then and a scientist could work in the field or in a small lab for a relatively modest amount of money. Recently, a group of successful business people, including Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Sergey Brin of Google, Anne Wojcicki, founder of 23andMe (also married to Sergey Brin), and Yuri Milner, a Russian entrepreneur and philanthropist, awarded five scientists $3 million each and plan to do so annually. Their awards have now morphed into a foundation called the Breakthrough in Life Sciences Prize.
Crowdsourcing – Yes, crowdsourcing has landed in the scientific community. In reality, many scientists can do a lot with a modest amount of money. They don’t need a $3 million award or grant. There are several sites already in existence to help scientists raise funds. These include SciFlies and the online group SciFund Challenge, which encourage scientists to crowdsource.
Regardless of what type of funding source you seek to accomplish your research, you have to market your project well. You just can’t present the facts. You have to tell a compelling story, and most scientists are not trained in marketing and may think it’s a dirty word.