Will the stimulus Package Help Arthritis Research?
Thanks to Senator Arlen Specter’s lobbying, the National Institute of Health (NIH) will receive an additional $10 billion dollars in funding over the next 2 years as the result of the stimulus package.
This comes as a major boost for many academic institutions such as University of California. University of California has been a leader in generating intellectual properties. In biotech, one in three California R&D firms – and one in six publicly traded firms nationwide – was founded by UC scientists. The California budget crisis has forced the state to cut $48 million funding for the UC and requires UC to implement another $100 million in internal savings to cover cost increases not funded by the state. The NIH funding will be a tremendous help for researchers. It is estimated that the $10 billion funding could create up to 70,000 jobs, many in laboratories at college campuses.
But how much of that will go into arthritis research? Of the $10 billion funding, $1.3 billion will go to the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Arthritis researchers will be competing with researchers studying basic science as well as other life-threatening diseases for grant money. Thus, at the end of the day, the funding may not be a major boost for arthritis research per se. Nevertheless, any funding is better than no funding. And we hope that pharmaceutical companies will step in to license innovations generated from academia and carry the research through clinical trials.
