The contribution of disease focused nonprofits to biomedical research and development

[摘要] Patient-centered, disease-focused nonprofits are playing an increasingly prominent role in accelerating the development of new diagnostics, drugs, and therapies. They are engaging in a variety of complex venture philanthropic activities as they seek to bridge the ;;valley of death;; gap between basic and clinical research. Examples of such activities include developing preclinical research tools, supporting clinical trials infrastructure, and investing in private biotechnology companies. In this thesis, 1: 1) quantify the financial contribution of US-based nonprofits to biomedical research and development (R&D) and the allocation to therapeutic areas; and 2) propose a framework for understanding the core functions of biomedical venture philanthropies. I find that US-based nonprofits contributed $3.7 billion to biomedical R&D in 2011, and that within certain disease areas nonprofit spending is comparable to or exceeds spending by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). I catalogue nonprofit activities and place them in a framework of five core functions: bridging gaps, enabling research, directing pipelines, informing stakeholders, and shaping markets. I present several case studies via this framework, discuss opportunities, and point out challenges such as a lack of conflict of interest standards. Methods included recording and analyzing publically available financial data from over 400 biomedical nonprofits, and conducting a series of in depth interviews with nonprofit executives and other related professionals.

[发布机构] Massachusetts Institute of Technology