Medical Research Futures Fund.

[tall_bearded]

Has anyone been able to work out how this fund is going to work, and in particular who has the intellectual property rights to research outcomes.

That is, if/when the research results in a product which is sold to the private sector for final development and product productiion (say a pharmaceutical company) who gets the money, is it the researcher/research facility or us vide general revenue.

[lakeland27]

i think there's little doubt private companies (big pharma etc) will develop any 'developments'. this government is ideologically committed to the private sector so it follows that they will benefit. taxpayers funding windfalls as well as breakthroughs i guess.

the most likely scenario (as the money is tied to the 'future fund' is in fact that the money wont be spent on anything that isn't already at a stage where it can profit) which means to me at least that the funds will sit there and gather dust and a little interest .

[amber-eyed-girl]

It is unlikely to be the individual researchers. They will be employees, either of a research based institution, or, by extension under funding, the government. Employees and research students tend to be required to sign a declaration waiving their intellectual property rights.

[tall_bearded]

Actually I have no problems with either the public funded component or the fact that the research may be sold to the private sector when it gets to the product development stage.

What I’m concerned about is, as it publically funded research you would think that, at the very least, the condition of any sale would be that product development and manufacture would occur here, and that part of the profits would be returned to the government by way of royalties.

[boris1gary]

the govt assures us that by 2022/23 there will be 1 billion a year invested, thats a lot of GP visits. Research is great but so are hospitals, maybe they can research what happens to people when their hospitals are starved of funds.

[fourandsixpants]

[catsnknots]

The way it generally works is that any person, company, organisation that gives financial support gets part of the proceeds. 

So this medical research fund that is going to be majority financed by the Super Fund (that Costello now heads) will get a lot of the financial rewards if a company hits it big. 

This is a fantastic way to keep some of the brightest minds and greatest ideas in the country. I really hope it works as it will open a whole new industry that can employ tens of thousands of people in the very long term. 

[fourandsixpants]

wonderful opportunity for Costello and his fat cat mates.....wonder how many back slappers have IOU's waiting for them at a later date too?

[lakeland27]

the fund wont employ anybody. it merely channels funds into existing programs and research positions .meanwhile the streets are full of homeless kids being pushed toward criminality . brilliant. election now.

[cherry*135]

15 May

BRW

Biotechs worried Medical Research Future fund will neglect commercialisation

Biotech executives have cautiously welcomed the formation of the Medical Research Future Fund, but have called for it to focus equally on research and commercialisation, and have also suggested its investment portfolio have a stipulated weighting to venture capital.

Billed to become “the biggest medical research endowment fund in the world in just six years”, the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) will be worth an initial $1.1 billion and is set to grow to a total $20 billion, fuelled by revenue from the new $7 Medicare co-payment for visiting a doctor.

The fund will be run by an independent Future Fund board, and will pay annual dividends worth $20 million in its initial year, growing to $1 billion by 2023.

Grants from the fund will be administered by the National Health and Medical Research Council, which has 25-year biotech veteran and CEO of Starpharma, Jackie Fairley, worried the government is neglecting commercialisation.

“They can’t forget the ‘D’ in ‘R&D’, otherwise we’ll just end up with a lot of exciting discoveries that offshore companies scoop up and make all the money from,” she says.

Fairley was pleased the research and development tax incentive, from which Starpharma received $4.7 million in 2012-13 for conducting all its clinical trials in Australia, would be retained albeit at a reduced rate.

“The reduced rate [by 1.5 percentage points] will impact us in 2013-14 but we respect that every sector has to contribute its share. Given the cuts to other innovation programs we’re glad the government has kept this one because it has a track record of creating jobs in Australia.”

The government should not be picking winners within the innovation economy, says executive chairman of Clarity Pharmaceuticals, Dr Alan Taylor.

“At a high level the new Future Fund appears to be positive for the biotech industry, but as a former investment banker I’m interested in seeing Australian smarts of all kinds get commercialised – and the cuts to programs like Commercialisation Australia is a negative in that regard.”

Both Starpharma’s Fairley and OneVentures founder Michelle Deaker said the Future Fund board guiding the medical research fund should be made to invest a minimum amount in Australian venture capital managers, particularly those helping commercialise local biotech breakthroughs.

“Given the money is coming out of medical services delivery, it should as much as possible go back in to improving health outcomes for Australians,” Fairley said.

As it stood Australia lacked the “critical mass of resources” to commercialise the volume of research funding earmarked from the new fund, Deaker added.

“There will be economists who’ll disagree with me about directing investment [toward local venture capitalists], but it would help address the bottlenecks in innovation commercialisation which will otherwise stop medical research reaching its full potential here.”

Meanwhile in an opportunity for biotech companies working in the dementia space, $200 million has been proposed to fund new research in the form of grants, scholarships and fellowships as well as a new National Institute for Dementia Research to co-ordinate the allocation of funds and translation of existing research into policy and practice.

The government is also providing $9.9 million over the next five years to the National Health and Medical Research Council itself, to simplify and streamline grant application and approval processes. The project will also aim to develop a nationally consistent approach to the way clinical trials are overseen and conducted, potentially impacting the extensive and often confusing ethics approval processes required from sponsors and coordinators at clinical trial sites.