OF THE
TIMES
Funding
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation [...]
Summary
Background
Each year, billions of US$ are spent globally on infectious disease research and development. However, there is little systematic tracking of global research and development. We present research on investments into infectious diseases research from funders in the G20 countries across an 18-year time period spanning 2000–17, [...]
Methods
The study examined research awards made between 2000 and 2017 for infectious disease research from G20-based public and philanthropic funders . We searched research databases using a range of keywords, and open access data were extracted from funder websites. [...]
Findings
The final 2000 to 2017 dataset included 94 074 awards for infectious disease research, with a sum investment of $104·9 billion (annual range 4·1 billion to 8·4 billion) and a median award size of $257 176 (IQR 62 562–770 661; table 1). [...]
Evidence before this study
In November, 2019, we searched PubMed, internet search engines, and global health stakeholder sites, such as WHO, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Wellcome Trust, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Policy Cures, using the search terms “research investments”, “research funding”, “infectious disease funding”, ”global health investments”, and “global health funding”, including only articles published in English. [...]
Data Analysis
[...]
Research award amounts were adjusted for inflation in original currency and converted to 2017 US$ using the mean exchange rate in the award year. Award amounts were missing for 6072 (5·7%) of 94 074 awards, from 13 funders (appendix p 2). In these cases, estimates were made using maximum award amounts for that funding stream as per the funder's website, by asking principal investigators for an approximate or exact award amount provided, or by asking in-country researchers who had knowledge of the research and development landscape for typical award amounts. Datasets and analyses were circulated to all authors for review and comment. [...]
Results
By type of science, pre-clinical research received $61·1 billion (58·2%) across 70 337 (74·8%) awards. Public health research received $29·5 billion (28·1%) from 19 197 (20·4%) awards (table 1). Phase 1–3 trials received $9·2 billion (8·8%) across 2440 (2·6%) awards.
Phase 1–3 awards had the largest median award size ($1·0 million, IQR 1·3 million to 3·0 million), compared with a median award size of $0·2 million for each of pre-clinical (IQR 0·06 million to 0·7 million), product development (0·1 million to 1·0 million), and public health research (0·06 million to 1·0 million; table 1).
Funding for virology was $62·9 billion (60·0%), more than twice the amount for bacteriology ($27·3 billion [26·0%]), almost six times that for parasitology ($11·5 billion [11·0%]), and almost forty times that for mycology ($1·7 billion [1·6%]). By product type, therapeutics research ($18·3 billion [17·4%]) received more investment than did vaccines ($16·0 billion [15·3%]) or diagnostics ($3·6% [3·4%]; appendix p 2). ...
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