Health Canada spending up 568% Ottawa boosts spending on biotechnology S&T by 60% in two years

Biotechnology spending by the federal government jumped 24.8% in FY02-03 to $695.1 million, nearly equalling the 28.8% increase between FY00-01 and FY01-02. In just two years, federal biotech funding has skyrocketed 60.1%, representing an increase of $262.8 million. R&D accounted for 95.3% of the total, with the remainder going to related scientific activities.

The findings are contained in a new bulletin from Statistics Canada which feeds into the Canadian Biotechnology Strategy. This version of the bulletin marks the first time data from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) and National Defence are included.

Higher education is the single largest recipient of the funding, capturing $340 million or 49% of the total through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), CFI , the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and Genome Canada (see chart).

CIHR accounted for $232.3 million or 33.4% of the overall biotech total, followed by the National Research Council (NRC) ($124.8 million/17.9%), CFI ($82.7 million/11.9%). Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) ($63.9 million/9.2%) and NSERC ($50.0 million/7.2%).

The NRC is the largest in-house performer of federally funded biotech S&T funding. At $121.9 million, it represents nearly half of all intramural spending ($252.1 million) which accounts for 36.3% of the federal total. Other major intramural performers are AAFC ($63.9 million) and Health Canada ($30.2 million). NRC also showed a modest increase in the same period, although its spending dropped moderately in FY02-03 to $124.8 million from $130.6 million the year before.

Natural Resources Canada declined 22.8% in the same two-year period from $7.9 million to $6.1 million. But the largest drop of any science-based department of agency was experienced by Environment Canada. Its biotech S&T spending plummeted 64.6% in the same period, from $4.9 million to just $1.7 million.

HEALTH CANADA REGISTERS MASSIVE INCREASE

The largest spending increase was registered by Health Canada, which increased a phenomenal 567.9% from $4.8 million in FY00-01 to $31.8 million, of which 94.7% was spent in-house.

As a new agency, CIHR shows a significant rate of increase, jumping from 57.5% from $133.7 million in FY00-01 to $232.3 million in FY02-03. That represents 37% of CIHR’s total budget of $633.0 million.

CFI’s biotech spending of $82.7 million accounts for 23% of its overall budget of $359.5 million, while AAFC expenditures of $63.9 million make up 17% of that department’s $384.5-million S&T budget.

The private sector received $40.3 million in federal biotech funding, with three quarters ($30.1 million) coming from Industry Canada through programs such as Technology Partnerships Canada. The only other significant funder of private sector biotech is the Department of National Defence ($5.6 million).

The number of person-years devoted to biotech S&T was 1,888 in FY02-03, up 44.% from FY00-01 when there were 1,304.

With 849 person-years devoted to biotech S&T, the NRC is the largest biotech S&T performer in the federal government. NRC personnel are roughly split between scientific and professional and technical, with the balance devoted to operational and administrative support. The second-largest performer of federal biotech S&T is AAFC with 400 person-years, followed by Health Canada (332), CIHR (80) Natural Resources Canada (50), Industry Canada (44) and National Defence (40).

Federal employees engaged in biotech S&T account for 6% of the federal S&T work force, which had 33,172 person-years in FY02-03.

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