Funding Models in the Biomedical Sciences

Background

The sponsorship of biomedical research in the United States has undergone a series of important transformations since the 1980s. These include changes in federal and state policies, legal decisions, and the increasing costs of scaled-up biomedical research, including drug development and clinical trial implementation and management. While much basic biomedical research occurs in academic health centers, the sponsors are many and varied, leading to novel funding arrangements, as well as new problems. We argue that one way of conceptualizing academy-industry financial relationships is through an examination of funding models.

Methods

This paper defines the parameters of funding models, and proposes a provisional typology of models that are currently taking shape in academic health centers. In addition, this paper will present preliminary data from a survey of offices of research administration from 101 academic health centers. The survey asked about the prevalence of three types of models: bans on funding from specific industries; department-level industry sponsorship agreements; and research center-level industry sponsorship agreements. In addition, we examined a sub-set of these models through in-depth interviews with stakeholders, and textual analyses of policies and documents related to the agreement.

Discussion

This research contributes to a growing body of work examining academia-industry relations. We argue that attention to funding models in the biomedical sciences is critical for public health perspectives because of the growing importance of industry sponsorship during a period of retraction of federal funding, and of the possible dangers, such as conflict of interest and research biases, of industry sponsorship.