A bit more information has come to light on the Federal Government’s proposed Medical Research Future Fund. The government announced in the May Budget that money raised from its proposed $7 Medicare fee and cuts to hospital funding would be used to grow the research fund into a $20 billion kitty. Capital of the fund would be protected but earnings, expected to reach $1 billion a year, would be allocated to medical research.
The fund doesn’t appear to have been well thought out. It was revealed in a Senate hearing this week that health department officials only began work on the research fund in April, just weeks before it was announced in the budget. Chief Scientist Ian Chubb has revealed that he was not consulted about the fund before it was announced. “I didn't have any role in it,” Professor Chubb said. Health department secretary Professor Jane Halton told the Senate hearing that details of what sort of research would be eligible for funding hadn’t been determined. She said the government was open to the idea of using the money to support clinical trials, but it had not been decided whether the money would fund preventive health research, or assist in commercialisation of scientific research.
Professor Halton’s statement appears to be at odds with comments made by Federal Health Minister Peter Dutton, who has nominated South Australia as a chief beneficiary of the $20 billion MRF Fund, with “tens of thousands of jobs” likely to be created. Dutton’s comments are said to refer to the South Australia Health and Medical Research Institute (SAMHI), which is tipped to become the biggest biomedical research hub in the southern hemisphere on the back of billions of dollars of funding. Dutton, during an interview with News Corp, also ruled out ruling out using money from the fund to commercialise Australian medical breakthroughs. “The government with taxpayers money is not a hedge fund, we’re not an entrepreneur with a huge appetite for high risk, high return...we need to spend it in a responsible way,” he said.
The CEOs of Australian biotechs, Benitec and Sienna Cancer Diagnostics, have spoken out in criticism of the proposed operation of the fund.
Benitec has just started clinical trials of a breakthrough one jab treatment for hepatitis C. Its gene treatment is based on research by the CSIRO and could also be used to treat other diseases such as lung cancer and macular degeneration. Benitec CEO Dr Peter French confirmed that the company had sought federal government support to see the research translated into a treatment but was refused. Dr French warned “If the government won’t spend money from the $20 billion medical research fund on translating research into commercial products it will get a whole lot of nice papers but it won’t benefit the economy.”
Sienna Cancer Diagnostics has just launched a new urine test for bladder cancer based on Australian research, which slashes the cost of diagnosis and eliminates the need for a painful procedure used in current diagnosis. The test was bought to the commercialisation phase with the help of an $800,000 Commercialisation Australia grant. However the Federal Government simultaneously abolished the Commercialisation Australia program in the May budget. Sienna CEO Kerry Heggarty fears that if no money from the Medical Research Future Fund is allocated to commercialization, Australia risks losing almost all of the potential profits from medical research to overseas companies. “Let’s say the $20 billion fund generates a super idea that is translated to a patent and some big US company says I’ll turn it into a product- they get 90 per cent of the profit, we get 10 per cent,” she said.
