Who Says Biomedical Research Doesn't Pay?

There's a domino effect in biomedical science. Without advancement in basic research, you can't really further clinical research and medical progress would slow or stop.

Today, about half of the cost of all biomedical research is provided by the federal government ' in large part from the NIH or National Institutes of Health and the rest from private interests. A recent report highlighted the importance of federal funding for basic research which has produced a healthier population and medical industries that have fueled the economy.

Federally sponsored research has led to a seventy-five percent decline in the infant mortality rate. Vaccines have prevented more than one hundred million infections and two-and a half million deaths each year. Americans enjoy a two-thirds decline in deaths from heart disease, a reduction of one-point-seven million cancer deaths since nineteen-ninety-one and an eighty percent reduction in stroke mortality. And this all pays off in a longer lifespan for Americans which now averages seventy nine years.

This research also provides significant economic benefits. NIH funded research is cited in almost one-third of private sector biological patent applications. Federal funding helped form hundreds of biomedical and biotech companies in the US. The human genome project alone has generated over one trillion dollars in economic activity and over four million job years.

Who says science doesn't pay!