Trends in the global funding and activity of cancer research

Abstract

Cancer research has carved an astonishing trajectory giving rise to a multi billion euro global network covering most domains of science and including all manner of research funders from industry to government and philanthropic funders. We have estimated that in 2004/2005 the global spend on cancer research was 14,030 million euros, with the USA, dominated by the NCI (c. 83%) accounting for the largest absolute spend. This is between 2 and 3 times the level of per capita spend compared to EU‐15 and Europe, respectively. In Europe, the UK is at comparable levels of spend compared to the USA. Funding for cancer research in Europe is split almost 50:50 between philanthropic and governmental sources. Cancer research productivity in terms of outputs (publications) is slightly greater in Europe compared to the USA with an increasing trend towards more applied (clinical) outputs. Both the USA and Europe have equally strong industry‐supported output levels.

A review of first-in-human small molecule oncology clinical trials

“…This supports the well-established fact that the United States are significant contributors to clinical oncology research, spending more than any other region 78 .…”

The State of Research and Development in Global Cancer Surgery

“…The estimated total expenditure for 2008, extrapolated from an inspection of funding sources and correlated with public domain declared expenditures (federal, philanthropic, and private) is about $110 billion from industry, $90 billion from the public sector, and just over $20 billion from the private-nonprofit sector, total about $220 billion. 2 Analysis of the leading funding bodies acknowledged in the total sample of 2682 papers showed that Canada and the US depended heavily on government support, whereas in Europe, private-nonprofit organizations played a rather larger role. We calculated that the overall financial resources being spent on global cancer R&D in 2008 were about $670 million, of which about 10% came from industry.…”

Optimizing investigator-led oncology research in Europe

“…This accounts for approximately a quarter of total global research expenditure, provides around 70% of funding for all clinical cancer drug trials, and goes mainly to the USA and Europe. [11][12][13] Industry-led studies are primarily financed by industry. Independent investigator-led studies might be funded at least partly by industry, but are more frequently funded by other sources, such as government agencies and philanthropic, non-governmental and charitable organizations.…”