MEDICAL RESEARCH COUNCIL AND BIG PHARMA RENEW RESEARCH PROGRAM WITH AIM OF BOOSTING FUNDING FOR BASIC RESEARCH

The Medical Research Council's much vaunted joint research program with the pharmaceutical sector has finally been renewed for a second five-year term with provision for significantly higher contributions from the public purse. The Phase II goal is said to be significantly higher than the $250 million in research funding Phase I was supposed to generate, due largely to the change in funding ratios for the four different programs.

The MRC will now match contributions by members of Canada's Research-Based Pharmaceutical Companies (Rx&D) (formerly the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association of Canada) for salary awards and training awards, up substantially from the 1:4 (MRC/Rx&D) ratio under Phase I. Grants will now be funded on a 1:2 basis while clinical trials remain at a 4:1 ratio. The MRC/RX&D Research Program will now also introduce funding for clinical trial add-on studies, as well as support for clinician-scientists involved in clinical trials, and operating fellowship awards.

"We want to stay away from stating a monetary goal because it became the sole focus with the first program and it's about a lot more than money," says Genny Cardin, a program development officer with MRC's business development office who was seconded to the program to help conceive and structure new funding categories. "We would be thrilled if it was double and pleased if it increased by 50%. This is a much better program and we've significantly enhanced the ratios."

Negotiations between the MRC and Rx&D to hammer out the details of Phase II dragged on through most of 1999, forcing the program into a state of limbo. While officially moribund since the end of 1998, it continued to receive and process applications, making a number of awards that have been added on to the 1998 total. Also slowing the process was the switch in leadership at Rx&D from July Erola to Murray Elston, and the MRC's preoccupation with its transition to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

The program is now without a fulltime director, following the resignation of Dr Robert Dugal, who returns to Rx&D and will be that organization's administrative liaison for the initiative. Michael Stinson, MRC's associate director of life science investments will serve as acting director until a replacement is announced in the near future. A short list of candidates has been selected and will be interviewed over the next several weeks. Karen Dewar has been brought on to serve as program manager.

To make up for lost time, several rounds of funding are slated for 2000, with the first two deadlines for letters of intent already passed. Awards will be announced in March, May, July, October, December and next March.

Thorny issues being resolved.

In the meantime, discussion continues on thorny issues that have dogged the program since its inception. While great progress has been achieved in bridging the divide between the priorities and goals of the academic research community and those of the pharmaceutical industry, differences remain in the areas of intellectual property protection and the clash between peer review guidelines and mechanisms and the goals of industrially-sponsored research.

These problems and others created a cloud over the program in its early days and were partially responsible for missing the funding goal for Phase I. At one point then-director Dugal initiated a company-visitation program to boost participation (R$, May 13/98). While the pharmaceutical firms eventually exceeded their five-year, $200 million commitment by $5 million, the MRC fell short of its $50 million goal, contributing just $32 million over the same period. Rx&D's Phase I contribution included $37.5 million, which was not technically recognized, due to the peer-review committee practice of approving projects and then reducing their budgets. In many cases the firms simply spent the amounts they had originally committed without renegotiating after the approval process was complete. When the 1999 awards of $8.6 million are added to the total, the final Phase I numbers were boosted to $245.619 million.

Phase I data now available.

With the completion of the program's first phase, the program has compiled data to provide detail who contributed and where the money went. Of the Rx&D member firms, Hoechst Marion Roussel was by far the largest funder, contributing $36.9 million over five years. Merck Frosst Canada Inc was second with $19.2 million, followed byPfizer Canada Inc ($12.0 million) and Bristol-Myers Squibb ($11.7 million). The largest homegrown participant in the program was BioChem Therapeutic Inc with $1.6 million in grant contributions. Other Canadian participants included Neurochem Inc ($847,000), Theratechnologies Inc ($845,000), Axcan Pharma Inc ($817,000 & $703,000 in award contributions), BioChem Pharma Inc ($545,000 & $185,000 in award contributions), Allelix Biopharmaceuticals Inc ($707,000).

Sunnybrook Health Science Centre was the program's top recipient, dwarfing the competition with $83.7 million for a wide variety of research projects. McMaster Univ was second with $32.7), with the Univ of Western Ontario close behind with $30.6 million. (See table for top 15 institutions).

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