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The NIH budget doubled over five years between 1998 and 2003, but has not kept pace with inflation since then. Even as new research propels medical discovery forward, the funding environment at NIH remains relatively flat, with most resources going towards basic, rather than translational, research.
When asked to consider whether the NIH is investing in innovation, experts generally agreed that that the answer was yes, but that it could be doing a better job. With the Roadmap initiative and TREND as examples of solid steps the NIH is taking in this direction, panelists suggested that the realignment of incentives and a new way of thinking about innovation will be key to achieving its innovation potential.
“It comes down to a failure to communicate,” said Jonathan Simons, President and CEO of the Prostate Cancer Foundation. “NIH is virtually the only funding entity that can be truly independent of the fluctuations of Wall Street and the vagaries of donors, but they aren’t incentivized effectively and therefore the discovery time cycle is too long.” The distinction is that government funds go towards solving a problem, not towards developing a tool to solve the problem. This means longer timeframes and not enough money for the tool builders, who are integral to expediting the discovery process.
With an outdated structure that is not aligned with how patients today receive care, the organization is “long on safeguards and short on speed” said Susan Solomon, CEO and Co-Founder of The New York Stem Cell Foundation.
Steve Usdin, Washington Editor, BioCentury Publications, suggested that the way forward was to redefine innovation to include regulatory science, without which biomarkers cannot be qualified. In the absence of this, he pointed out; research becomes simply an academic exercise.
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| (L-R) Jonathan Simons, President and Chief Executive Officer, Prostate Cancer Foundation, Ceci Connolly, Staff Writer, The Washington Post, Susan Solomon, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, The New York Stem Cell Foundation |
David Wholley, Director of Biomarkers Consortium at the Foundation for the NIH noted the importance of public-private partnerships to support the right kind of innovation and said patient advocates play an important role in realizing cross-sector efforts.
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