Warren Buffet was quoted as saying “It is far easier to make money than to give it away effectively.” Warren Buffet, Bill Gates and other well known philanthropists have focused their efforts building giving portfolios and leveraging to drive strategic and purposeful impact giving practices.
In the 2014 Budget a new $20 Billion Medical Research Future Fund was announced. The announcement provided little detail on the strategy and focus to ‘how’ the fund would support medical research and translation. The ‘what’ the fund would support appears to focus on biomedical research.
It was recently reported in the Guardian “Leading scientists cautious about $20bn medical research future fund”. Whilst biomedical research is one focus area for delivering community benefits it is part of a bigger picture. With a new fund comes new opportunities to review what is currently supported and how, then to make strategic decisions about how to maximize the potential impact from our investment in medical research.
The National Foundation for Medical Research (NFMRI) reviewed the funding landscape and innovation pathways to develop three social investment (giving) portfolios to strategically support biomedical research that advances innovations and enable collaborations.
The strategy considered a number of reports including the McKeon review into Health and Medical Research and the ACIP review into collaborations.
NFMRI’s strategy focuses on funding gaps in biomedical research and delivering benefits to the community through innovations including; drugs, diagnostics, vaccines and devices.
We identified three funding and knowledge gaps and developed social investment (giving) portfolios along the innovation pathway to support research not only through grants but also by value adding with access to networks and knowledge around translation and commercialisation.
Translation requires more than research but support systems to advance our discoveries along the innovation pathway to attract investors and industry partners. These partners are essential in navigating the long, expensive and difficult pathways of taking our medical discoveries from bench to bedside, gaining regulatory approval ensuring safety and efficacy.
To support innovation the budget announced a new Entrepreneurs’ Infrastructure Program, which will provide $484.2 million over five years and saving $845.6 million over five years by ceasing other programs. The Australian Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (AVCAL) summarises the changes.
We look forward to hearing more about the details for the Medical Research Future Fund, the Entrepreneurs’ Infrastructure Program and opportunities for consultation with the medical research community.