Memorandum submitted by the Alzheimer's
Research Trust (FC 47)
1. The Committee asked for evidence on estimating
the economic impact of research. In September 2009, the Alzheimer's
Research Trust and Office of Health Economics (OHE) published
"Forward Together", on the complementarity of public
and charitable research with respect to private spending (the
report can be viewed at http://bit.ly/7tzIjl). OHE researchers
examined scores of papers investigating the impact of public and
charitable research spending, a debate that is particularly intense
in the biomedical research sector. They found that basic research—science
carried out to understand fundamental principles, such as what
causes Alzheimer's disease—appears to stimulate particularly
high levels of private investment. One US study analysed in the
report suggests a £1 investment in basic research leads to
£8.38 of further investment over eight years. The report's
lead-author, Jorge Mestre-Ferrandiz of the Office of Health Economics,
said:
"Based on the US experience, a £1 increase
in UK government or charity spending on medical research could
lead to an increase in private research spending from the pharmaceutical
industry of between £2.20 and £5.10. These potential
effects could be larger in areas, like dementia, where public
and charity research efforts are focused on basic, rather than
clinical research".
2. With regard to dementia research specifically,
UK dementia scientists are among the world's most productive and
innovative. In the US, Federal funding for dementia research is
13 times higher than UK government investment (http://www.alz.org/publicpolicyforum/08/downloads/Federal_Funding_Alz_%20
Research.doc), even before accounting for President Obama's stimulus
package. Despite this, British scientists are world-leaders in
many areas of dementia research, including pathology, imaging
and genetics (http://bit.ly/1OfyZ3). The Alzheimer's Research
Trust believes it is the UK's responsibility to build on its strong
science base to tackle conditions like dementia, which afflicts
35 million people worldwide.
3. The Committee sought views on "the
process for deciding where to make cuts in SET spending".
We are concerned that broader SET spending cuts will have a negative
impact on a field that is already suffering from years of neglect.
In 2007-08, less than 3% of medical research budgets (MRC and
NIHR), just £32.2 million, was invested in dementia research.
In 2008-09, that figure fell by 7% to £29.9 million.
4. We hope that future talent pool growth
of dementia scientists will include those trained in fields like
mathematics and other areas of scientific research. If funding
cuts hit these fields, the Alzheimer's Research Trust would be
concerned about the spill-over effects for dementia research.
5. In July 2009, over 30 leading scientists—with
the backing of charities including the Alzheimer's Research Trust,
Alzheimer's Society and Parkinson's Disease Society—warned
of an urgent need to significantly increase dementia research
funding. In an open letter, led by Professor Julie Williams, Chief
Scientific Adviser to the Alzheimer's Research Trust, they said:
"Today (21 July) the government will hold
a ministerial dementia research summit at the Royal Society. After
years of underfunding, it is encouraging that dementia research
is receiving serious attention.
"Within a generation, 1.4 million people
in the UK will live with dementia, costing our economy £50
billion per year.
"Yet for every pound spent on dementia care,
a fraction of a penny is spent on research into defeating the
condition.
"Our key weakness is lack of funding, not
lack of talent.
"The Government must use this summit to
initiate a national dementia research strategy. Most importantly,
it must commit to tripling its annual support for dementia research
to £96 million within five years.
6. The Alzheimer's Research Trust contributed
to the Nuffield Council on Bioethics' report on dementia, published
in October 2009. The Nuffield report criticised the "Cinderella
status" of dementia compared with other areas of medical
research and suggested that the current system of research funding
allocation is flawed, stating "the major research funding
bodies within the UK do not appear to have explicit policies according
to which they allocate funds between different conditions, focusing
rather on research excellence and the `importance' of the topic".
The Nuffield report argues that:
"Given the social and economic impact of
dementia, we believe that a more explicit approach to research
priorities would be likely to lead to significant increases in
research funding for dementia. If such an increase were not matched
by research applications of the necessary high standard, then
active steps should be taken to develop and promote research capacity
in the relevant areas".
7. The Alzheimer's Research Trust is committed
to increasing its funding of dementia research as much as is possible,
and other third sector organisations have shown a willingness
to support dementia research, however this is one area that cannot
be handled by charities alone; further government support is necessary.
If not via a disease-specific ringfence, then some consideration
of the social and economic cost of conditions like dementia should,
in our view, influence research funding decisions.
8. On 3 February 2010, the Alzheimer's Research
Trust will publish Dementia 2010, a report from the Health Economics
Research Centre, University of Oxford (available by contacting
Andrew Scheuber ascheuber@alzheimers-research.org.uk after 3 February).
The economists, led by Professor Alastair Gray, analysed the prevalence,
economic cost of, and research funding for, dementia, cancer heart
disease and stroke. They found that Dementia costs the UK economy
£23 billion per year. That is twice the cost of cancer (£12
billion per year), three times the cost of heart disease (£8
billion per year) and four times the cost of stroke (£5 billion).
Despite this, combined government and charitable investment in
dementia research is 12 times lower than spending on cancer research.
£590 million is spent on cancer research each year, while
just £50 million is invested in dementia research. Heart
disease receives £169 million per year and stroke research
£23 million. Dementia 2010 also reports that for every £1
million in care costs for the disease, £129,269 is spent
on cancer research, £73,153 on heart disease research, £8,745
on stroke research and just £4,882 on dementia research.
The Alzheimer's Research Trust feels this demonstrates a worrying
dissonance between growing health and social care costs and commitment
to developing new treatments, preventions and cures that could
save billions of pounds in the long run. The Alzheimer's Research
Trust believes that medical research funding bodies are not adequately
considering the wider opportunity cost—the cost of not utilizing
the full potential of British dementia scientists—of funding
decisions.
9. In 2009, the government announced the
formation of a Ministerial Advisory Group on Dementia Research,
led by the Department of Health but including research funders
from all sectors, including the Alzheimer's Research Trust. We
strongly welcome this initiative and hope it will lead to an increase
in dementia research capacity, an improvement in grant application
success rates, clarify career paths for potential/aspirant dementia
scientists, and sustainable growth in dementia research funding
from all sectors. Given our rapidly ageing population, we must
make progress soon.
DECLARATION OF
INTERESTS
The Alzheimer's Research Trust (registered charity
number 1077089) is the UK's leading dementia research charity.
We are dedicated to funding scientific studies to find ways to
treat, cure or prevent Alzheimer's disease, vascular dementia,
Lewy Body disease and fronto-temporal dementia. We do not receive
any government funding and instead rely on donations from individuals,
companies and charitable trusts, money raised by individuals and
gifts left in people's Wills.
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