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An analysis of research papers has found that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) provided funding to the research of 210 new drugs that were approved from 2010 and 2016:
A new study makes a strong case for the importance of government support for basic research: Federally funded studies contributed to the science that underlies every one of the 210 new drugs approved between 2010 and 2016.
Researchers at Bentley University scoured millions of research papers for mentions of those 210 new molecular entities, or NMEs, as well as studies on their molecular targets. Then, they looked to see which of those studies had received any funding from the National Institutes of Health.
The authors say the study, published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the first to capture the full scope of public funding behind FDA-approved drugs, both directly and indirectly. They also say it points to the need for continued federal funding for basic science — which the Trump administration has previously suggested slashing.
"Knowing the scale of the investment in the basic science leading to new medicines is critical to ensuring that there is adequate funding for a robust pipeline of new cures in the future," said Dr. Fred Ledley, one of the study's authors and a Bentley University researcher who studies the intersection of science and industry.
Contribution of NIH funding to new drug approvals 2010–2016 (open, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1715368115) (DX)
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday February 15 2018, @07:02AM
When they are given exclusive access to government research, then it is right change the system. It's not clear to be that the article asserts this.
OTOH, the drug release model in the US is horribly broken. I don't have a good way to fix it, but it's horribly broken. The companies that sell the drugs are the ones that validate whether the drugs work and are safe. This is an open invitation to corruption. They're allowed to advertise fraudulent promises without penalty. They suppress results that don't show the results they want. They....
Well, it's just horribly broken. The testing and review of drugs should be totally independent of those who are going to profit by selling them. Government research should be available to all at the same price. So should other research paid for by the government.
OTOH, what incentive would an independent group have to go through the long testing protocols? If the potential vendor is paying them, then they won't be independent very long. So it's easy to see that it's broken, but a good way to fix it isn't clear. (And I didn't mention half the problems, but every fix I've thought of seems to have problems just as bad.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.