R&D for more than one disease – core funding, platforms, multi-disease vector control & Other R&D
By Impact Global Health 29 January 2025
Overview
Overall multi-disease funding rose slightly, for the ninth year in a row; a fall in multi-disease R&D was offset by a rise in catchall ‘Other R&D’
This section covers funding that cannot be allocated to a specific neglected disease. Core funding refers to non-earmarked funding given to organisations that work in multiple disease areas, where the distribution of funding across diseases is not determined by the funder. Platform technologies are tools that can be applied to a range of areas, but which are not yet focused on a particular disease or product. Multi-disease vector control product captures R&D funding for products that target vectors capable of transmitting several different diseases, often the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which spreads dengue, Zika and Chikungunya. 'Other R&D' captures any remaining grants that cannot otherwise be allocated, including grants targeting multiple diseases for which disease-specific totals are unavailable.
Overall non-disease specific funding increased very slightly in 2023 (up $12m, 2%). A substantial rise in ‘Other R&D’ – funding targeting multiple or unspecified neglected diseases – was partly offset by another fall in multi-disease vector control, with core funding and platform technologies remaining largely unchanged.
Platform technologies
Overall funding for platform technologies remained relatively stable in 2023, dropping by just $6.0m (-2%) following the massive increase in 2022 (up $116m, 70%). The sudden rise in 2022 and much smaller drop in 2023 result from US NIH funding for drug platforms, which jumped from under $3m to $86m in 2022, thanks to a new $80m programme for antiviral development, before dropping by half, to $43m, in 2023. This offset growth in NIH platform funding elsewhere, and also the record-high in funding for diagnostic platforms, which grew by 49% ($27m) to $81m, leaving it essentially tied with vaccine platforms as the largest recipient of platform funding.
In 2024, the Gates Foundation provided $19.5m to Germany’s Schrödinger's to fund use of their computationally-driven molecular platform for drug discovery for use with neglected diseases.
This rise in funding for diagnostic platforms came via multiple new programs funded by the US DOD, as well as new funding from the Gates Foundation – both of which are focused on development of low cost, field deployable, pathogen agnostic diagnostic tools.
Gilead's twice-yearly injectable lenacapavir demonstrated efficacy and superiority to once-daily oral Truvada for HIV prevention in the PURPOSE 1 and 2 trials, with PURPOSE 1 being the first Phase III HIV prevention trial to result in no infections in the intervention arm. Gilead have signed non-exclusive royalty-free voluntary licensing agreements with six high-volume manufacturers ahead of regulatory approval, meaning low-cost generic versions could be available to LMICs soon afterwards
Core funding
Core funding of multi-disease R&D organisations remained relatively stable in 2023, increasing by $5m following a $75m drop in 2022.
Wellcome reduced its core funding by $17m (-39%) mostly via a sharp reduction in its – historically very consistent – funding to various Oxford University programmes. Funding from the Japanese government to the GHIT fund increased by $18m in line with its usual two-year cycle. Funding from the Czech Republic Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport – which provided first time funding of $18m in 2022 – was mostly sustained at $17m and continued to go entirely to the Czech Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry. Finally, core funding from the EC to EDCTP (now its sole beneficiary) dropped by $12m (-12%).
Accordingly, funding to EDCTP was down slightly (though it was still by far the top recipient, with $100m), and funding to GHIT was up (by $25m, to reach $47m).
Multi-disease vector control
Funding for multi-disease vector control dropped by $10m (-16%) in 2023, after having dropped by over $20m the previous year from a peak of $87m in 2021.
USAID's funding to IVCC for multi-disease vector control resumed in 2024 with a $2m grant to support field testing of IVCC's pipeline of new insecticides
While several funders reduced their multi-VCP funding, among the biggest contributors to the drop were the cessation of funding from the US DOD (down from $6.6m in 2022) and, to a lesser extent, the Australian DFAT (down from $2.6m). As usual, the US NIH accounted for a large proportion of multi-VCP funding (over half, 56%), its funding rebounding somewhat (up $4.1m, 15%) from the consecutive drops it experienced in 2021 and 2022 (totalling $10m).
Other R&D
Multi-disease and otherwise hard-to-categorise funding under the catchall category of ‘Other R&D’ increased to $100m in 2023 (up $23m) growing for the fourth consecutive year, with increases from the US NIH, the Gates Foundation and new funding from the Indian ICMR and DBT. Large Other R&D grants in 2023 included $4.7m in industry funding for a global health institute, $3.6m from the Gates Foundation for wastewater-based diagnostic surveillance techniques and $3.1m from Wellcome for a range of multinational R&D and capacity building activities.
Figure 8: Non-disease-specific funding
Non-disease specific funding
Table of contents
- Smart Decisions: The G-FINDER 2024 Neglected Disease R&D report
- Introduction
- Funding by disease
- The 'big three' – HIV, TB & malaria
- Multi-disease groups – diarrhoeal diseases, kinetoplastids & helminths
- Diseases with moderate funding – dengue, Salmonella, snakebite, hepatitis B & C
- Diseases with little funding – leprosy, bacterial pneumonia & meningitis, cryptococcal meningitis, rheumatic fever & histoplasmosis
- Diseases with almost no funding – leptospirosis, scabies, Buruli ulcer, mycetoma, yaws & trachoma
- R&D for more than one disease – core funding, platforms, multi-disease vector control & Other R&D
- Neglected disease funders
- Discussion