Steve Campbell is a Vancouver-based communications and government relations consultant who helps small pharmaceutical companies communicate with decision-makers and policy makers in Washington.
The headline – Newt Gingrich: Double the NIH budget – in The New York Times in mid-April looked like a mistimed April Fool's joke. But it was no joke. When a fiscal conservative Republican like Mr. Gingrich says the budget of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) should be doubled, biopharmaceutical companies all over the world should sit up and take immediate notice. They might also be wise to start making plans to go to Washington.
The U.S. NIH currently distributes $30-billion (U.S.) a year through its 27 different institutes or centres, each disbursing research grants in specific disease areas such as Alzheimer's, stroke, heart attack, breast cancer, prostate cancer, children's health and mitochondrial diseases, to name just a few.
However, that funding has not increased since 2003, while grant applications have risen by almost 50 per cent since then. In fact, given cost increases in biomedical research, today's funding level is 20 per cent below that of 12 years ago. That has led to fierce competition among grant applications. That situation may be about to change, and it's about time.
In his Times op-ed piece, Mr. Gingrich made a solid business and moral case for doubling the NIH budget. For example, he notes that the NIH is spending just $1.3-billion a year on Alzheimer's and dementia research or "roughly 0.8 per cent of the $154-billion these conditions will cost Medicare and Medicaid this year, more than all federal education spending." Total Alzheimer's and dementia costs may exceed $20-trillion over the next four decades.
Ultimately, the federal U.S. government is on the hook for the medical costs of these and other chronic diseases such as cancer, heart failure, stroke and others. A strong case can be made for fiscal conservatives on both the left and right to reduce future budget health-care costs by increasing spending on breakthrough research.
As a fiscal conservative, Mr. Gingrich is troubled by the rising health-care costs the federal government must pay, not to mention the personal costs involved in caregiver personal health and support. He sees basic research as critical to delivering breakthroughs that could reduce future costs, noting that, "Delaying the average onset of [Alzheimer's] by just five years would reduce the number of Americans with Alzheimer's in 2050 by 42 per cent, and cut costs by a third."
His plan: a bipartisan effort to double the NIH budget, similar to the one successfully initiated by president Bill Clinton while Mr. Gingrich was House speaker in the 1990s, which led to a doubling of the NIH budget by 2003.
The doubling idea seems to be gaining significant traction and support from Democrats and Republicans alike. In late June, a U.S. Senate panel approved a plan that would give the NIH a healthy $2-billion (6-per-cent) increase for the coming year starting in October, including a big $350-million (25-per-cent) increase for Alzheimer's. Since the House of Representatives has approved "only" a $1.1-billion increase, there will have to be some reconciliation between the two visions, and that will likely not occur until the fall. However, it seems clear that once the budget dust has settled, the NIH may be on track for the first increase in more than a decade.
"The Senate mark is obviously the best subcommittee action we have seen for NIH in more than 12 years. It shows that there is real momentum on a bipartisan basis in the House and Senate that restoration of NIH funding is a priority," Pat White, president of ACT for NIH (a group in Washington, D.C. that lobbies for biomedical research funding) told Science magazine in late June.
There's even more good news. A measure called the 21st Century Cures Act, designed to speed up research for cures, is now awaiting a vote in the House would give NIH an additional $2-billion a year through 2020. This money would be from separate from the NIH's regular funding process.
So why should Canadian small pharma companies start going to Washington now? Aside from the obvious answer – because that's where the money is – it's because it takes a year or two to network and build the connections within NIH, the Defence Department, the political leadership and other non-governmental groups that will support funding allocations for research. If you have a promising drug compound that has significant potential and needs research support in the United States, there hasn't been a better time in years to take on Washington. You'd better get started before every other pharmaceutical firm does the same.