Letter warns of dire consequences of stagnate or reduced funding
In a letter to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, signed by business and academic leaders in California, the California Healthcare Institute (CHI) supported the inclusion of increased funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the economic stimulus package currently under discussion. CHI represents more than 250 of the state’s leading biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and medical technology companies, venture capital firms, and premier academic research institutes and universities. CHI’s mission is to identify and advocate for policies to promote biomedical research, development and innovation in California.
“We are deeply concerned about the impact of the current economic crisis on employees, businesses, and families in California and across the United States. Recent discussions regarding the allocation of funds in proposed economic stimulus legislation underscore the severity of the situation,” said CHI President and Chief Executive Officer, David Gollaher, Ph.D. “We understand that federal economic stimulus must have broad and immediate impact, and we appreciate the careful consideration that must be given to maximize the effects of federal spending, but the inclusion of increased funding for the NIH in any stimulus package is imperative for this industry to continue to develop the cures and treatments of tomorrow.”
Increased funding at NIH would produce immediate results by allowing approval of highly rated NIH grants that are already in the agency’s pipeline. With each grant awarded it has been estimated that seven new jobs are created within the communities of the award recipient. Increasing NIH funding would address two important goals: immediately promote economic growth and job creation in an important sector of the high-tech economy, and boost efforts to advance biomedical science and the resulting technologies, tools, and therapies that will help transform medicine and improve healthcare for all Americans.
NIH funded research is the foundation of California’s life sciences industry, which today employs some 271,000 people statewide. California’s biomedical research centers lead the nation in NIH grant funding and commercial licensing agreements, and for decades their scientists have engineered life saving therapies, diagnostic tools, drug delivery systems, and medical devices. In total, the state is home to more than 100 academic research centers, which, fueled by NIH and other federal research funding, pursue groundbreaking research that expands the world’s scientific knowledge, spearheads tomorrow’s disease treatments, and plants the seeds of company formation and job creation that help drive the economy. NIH grants fund the research upon which the biomedical industry is built.
Unfortunately, recent NIH funding levels threaten real consequences to the promises offered by advances in biomedical research. And the consequences on the ground are serious and growing. “The competition for grants is rising, and investigators see their proposals undergo successive rounds of submissions before applications are funded. Meanwhile, the value and duration of awards are decreasing. On top of that, funding constraints prohibit faculty from maintaining sufficiently staffed laboratories and limit them from hiring qualified younger researchers,” said Gail Naughton, Ph.D., dean, College of Business Administration at San Diego State University. “Over time, longer, more tenuous proposal cycles will have negative effects on future local workforce development and, ultimately, sustained innovation.”
Fortunately, Congress has recently begun to address these consequences. And CHI is confident that including increased NIH funding in a stimulus package will provide a dramatic and immediate economic benefit at the federal and local levels, while providing the improved long-term benefit to the nation of scientific discovery, therapeutic innovation and improved public health.
CHI represents more than 250 leading medical device, biotechnology, diagnostics and pharmaceutical companies and public and private academic biomedical research organizations. CHI's mission is to advance responsible public policies that foster medical innovation and promote scientific discovery. CHI's website is www.chi.org.
Contacts:
California Healthcare Institute
Nicole Beckstrand
(858)
456-8881
beckstrand@chi.org
