Pink Sheet is part of Pharma Intelligence UK Limited

This site is operated by Pharma Intelligence UK Limited, a company registered in England and Wales with company number 13787459 whose registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. The Pharma Intelligence group is owned by Caerus Topco S.à r.l. and all copyright resides with the group.

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use. For high-quality copies or electronic reprints for distribution to colleagues or customers, please call +44 (0) 20 3377 3183

Printed By

UsernamePublicRestriction

NIH PROTECTION OF INVESTIGATOR-INITIATED GRANTS IS DEPLETING LONG-TERM RESEARCH "CAPITAL" FOR TRAINING AND FACILITIES -- IoM PRESIDENT THIER

Executive Summary

NIH's emphasis on investigator initiated grants is exhausting the basic resources for research, such as training and facilities, Samuel Thier, president of the Institute of Medicine, told the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association annual meeting in Boca Raton, Fla. April 3. Thier criticized NIH's continuing support for more, larger and longer grants during the 1980's as the pursuit of "an irresponsible budgetary structure and strategy." Noting that the "very striking drop" in NIH funding for investigator-initiated grants to 4,600 RO1 grants this year (down from 5,500) has caused "screams and cries of pain" from the research community, Thier contended that the decline is the payback of poor budgetary choices. He tried to put the cutback in project numbers in context, however, noting that the decline is only a temporary setback for the U.S. research community. The average size of the RO1 grant continued to increase during the 1980's, Thier observed, while that "did not happen at the National Science Foundation [where] the average size of the grant went down." By the end of the decade, Thier said, "NIH was funding more grants at a higher level than they had ever funded before." The IoM president added that "if you look at the average length of grants in 1988, you will find that over half the grants are funded for up to five years." Thier pointed out that NIH "increased the number of grants, the dollars per grant, and the duration of grants." The effect of those decisions was to make necessary an "increase [of] the NIH budget in an exponential fashion." When those increases stop, "the payback has to come, in which the dollars available for new grants [are] eaten up by the old grants," Thier contended. "That's where we are this year. It is not nearly as dramatic as people are making it sound." The complaints of underfunding for biomedical research are based on an "enormous mythology," he alleged. Thier's comments are noteworthy as a preview to a report IoM will release later this year addressing NIH's fiscal responsibility. Thier's presentation to PMA indicated that IoM will come out strongly for a redistribution of NIH resources. His comments come at a time of review for NIH's mission. HHS has established a blue ribbon panel to make recommendations on the future direction for the agency. NIH's spending on training has dried up to a neglible amount of the overall budget, Thier said. "Our investment in the next generation has progressively fallen off during this period of time," he said, adding "What I want you to notice then is that we have taken away from training and put [resources] into RO1s for investigator initiated research." Similarly, Thier was critical of the amount of the NIH budget alloted to improvement of facilities and equipment. There has been "virtually no investment at all" in facilities, he said, according to the IoM review of NIH's budget. "The message that I am trying to deliver is that we have pursued a strategy in biological research which has said that our product is research and what we are going to do is that we are going to keep producing that product and we are going to spend down all of our long-term capital if we have to," Thier asserted. The research community hopes "that someone will bail us out when [the spending] finally comes down around our ears." He pointed out that the new demands for NIH's budget come "at exactly the time when it is most difficult to get the federal government to consider increasing investment."

You may also be interested in...



Part D Discount Liability Coming Into Focus: CMS Releases Drug Cost Data

Newly released Medicare Part D data sheds light on the sales hit that branded pharmaceutical manufacturers will face when the coverage gap discount program gets under way in 2011

FDA Skin Infections Guidance Spurs Debate On Endpoint Relevance

FDA appears headed for a showdown with clinicians and the pharmaceutical industry over the proposed new clinical trial endpoints for acute bacterial skin and skin structure infections, the guidance's approach for justifying a non-inferiority margin and proposed changes in the types of patients that should be enrolled in trials

Shire Hopes To Sow Future Deals With $50M Venture Fund

Specialty drug maker Shire has quietly begun scouting deals with a brand-new $50 million venture fund, the latest of several in-house investment arms to launch with their parent company's pipelines, not profits, as the measure of their worth

Latest Headlines
See All
UsernamePublicRestriction

Register

PS017237

Ask The Analyst

Ask the Analyst is free for subscribers.  Submit your question and one of our analysts will be in touch.

Your question has been successfully sent to the email address below and we will get back as soon as possible. my@email.address.

All fields are required.

Please make sure all fields are completed.

Please make sure you have filled out all fields

Please make sure you have filled out all fields

Please enter a valid e-mail address

Please enter a valid Phone Number

Ask your question to our analysts

Cancel