A Case for Global Health R&D - From New Jersey
02/17/2011
John Donnelly on the $60 bn industry that makes New Jersey "the Silicon Valley of global health research"
Michael Gerson of the Washington Post; James Carey, vice president of health policy at Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp., and David Perlin, executive director of the Public Health Research Institute Center.
WASHINGTON - Across the street under the lit-up U.S. Capitol Dome, lawmakers debated late into Wednesday night about major cuts in the federal budget.
At the same time, in the Minuteman Room on the top floor of the Reserve Officers Association building, a small group of senior U.S. officials, global health experts and representatives from some of New Jersey's large pharmaceutical companies talked about important it was now to increase funding for global health R&D.
"It may be a hard time to talk about new investment with all the challenges facing this country, but there really isn't a more important time to do it," said Mary Woolley, President and CEO of Research!America, which is holding a series of dinners in Washington highlighting the economic impact of global health research and development on states. Wednesday's dinner featured New Jersey.
The state's numbers are impressive: New Jersey is the third largest health-related R&D employer in the United States, supporting more than 211,000 jobs, and its health R&D industry created more than a $60 billion impact on the state in 2009.
And according to a poll of New Jersey residents released Wednesday by Research!America, some 84 percent said that New Jersey was a leader in health R&D, compared to 77 percent saying the state led in education and 67 percent cited defense. Some 94 percent said it was improved for New Jersey to be a leader in health R&D.
Still, said Dona deLeon, director of the D.C. office of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, said that governors around the country are scrambling to meet budget shortfalls and to keep businesses from moving away.
"It's a very bad time for the economy," she said. "Governors all over are looking to retain businesses. They are going as far as Illinois, traveling to retain business, trying to set up an economic engine in their state. In our state, the governor is very well acquainted with (the pharmaceutical) industry. It's very well known that this industry is really an engine that drives our state."
But she also said that New Jersey now faces an $11 billion gap in its budget. "When you have those numbers coming at you, the economic development side is on the governor's screen and on his agenda all the time, all the time, all the time," she said.
Jeffrey Sturchio, a former Merck executive and now CEO of the Global Health Council, said New Jersey residents should be more actively promoting its century-long record of success in global health R&D. He said the last few years in particular have shown remarkable results.
"New Jersey is the Silicon Valley of global health research and development, it is Route 128 of global health R&D," Sturchio said. "Four of the five major vaccine manufacturers in the world are based in or have work in New Jersey."
David Perlin, executive director of the Public Health Research Institute Center, said his organization alone has turned into an economic powerhouse. "Our budget has increased 40 percent over the last three years, and we're hiring faculty members, post-docs, technicians, and research associates, and it's because of global health," he said. In addition, royalty fees from patent-protected discoveries have yielded $30 million for the institution in the last decade.
Much of the discussion Wednesday among the 25 participants was on how they could work better together and surmount various challenges along the way.
Said Perlin: "The biggest obstacle to innovation and development is the silo mentality that has been built up through the years. By and large, academics discover, they don't really innovate. It's business that innovates. ... Can we get industry involved to help us develop discovery to innovation?"
Dr. Lee Reichman, executive director of global tuberculosis at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, said "I've been doing TB since before it was sexy," believed that new partnerships among various groups in global health has been speeding the process of discovery.
But he added, "One of the problems is that some academics have a great prejudice against industry. If I write a paper I have to disclose all of my ties to industry. In doing so it sets me up that, ‘Gee, I'm doing something bad.' That mentality isn't going to change soon."
Around the room, the representatives of pharmaceutical companies and of universities nodded their heads. Many said that the involvement of industry was critical.
Lakshmi Sundaram, advocacy director for the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics, told the story about how her organization helped match a California company, Cepheid, with a New Jersey scientist, David Alland, and then pitched in funding, which eventually helped create cartridges for a coffee maker-sized machine that will give diagnosis of TB drug resistance in 90 minutes. Before, the tests would take up to three months.
"One of the reasons that I'm here," said Sundaram, who flew in from Geneva earlier in the day, "is that this latest TB test has the potential to revolutionize the fight against TB and it was co-developed in New Jersey. So you can have a group from a state and when joined in with the appropriate partners, you can have an enormous impact on people all over the world."
That story and others like it, said Kaitlin Christenson, coalition director of the Global Health Technologies Coalition, was evidence that investment in global health R&D could pay big dividends.
"Policy-makers, members of Congress, they are being asked to make decisions that are not only smart, but point toward new economic opportunity," Christenson said. "We need to equip our champions on the Hill with stories they can tell why this is important for U.S. investment."
John Donnelly is a freelance writer based in Washington, D.C.
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