campusreview. com. au
INDUSTRY & RESEARCH
idea from looking at their patient, they can say,‘ I wonder if that’ s been looked at?’ They look at all the research around the world and say,‘ Here’ s a loophole we can develop.’ It’ s a two-way flow, making sure research is translated quickly and effectively.”
She says embedding research in clinics has been on the agenda in Australia since the results of the 2013 McKeon Review were published and that funding difficulties in the way are aspects of the system that government has neglected.
“ I don’ t think there’ s any surreptitious, sneaky background thing trying to exclude them; it’ s just an oversight that needs to be addressed in the legislation,” Foley says.
In response to the MacCallum Centre ' s statements, a spokesperson for the National Health and Medical Research Council says there are no obstacles preventing institutions such as MacCallum from accessing funds. The spokesperson says MacCallum was an accredited administering institution in 2013, but failed to renew its status.
“ There is no barrier from NHMRC’ s perspective to [ MacCallum ] reapplying for administering institution status,” the spokesperson says.“ Since 2005, NHMRC has committed over $ 242 million through 321 grants on which the MacCallum Centre is contributing to the research effort. Of these grants, 28 were for clinical trials, with a total value of just over $ 33 million.”
Meanwhile, Labor says the MRFF has sucked $ 20 billion from the healthcare system and has expressed concerns money from it could become a slush fund for pet Coalition projects.
“ Despite government promises the MRFF would be overseen by an independent
Ministerial Advisory Council, the bill [ behind the MRFF ] makes no mention of this council, or any requirement that government abide by its decisions,” opposition health spokeswoman Catherine King says in a statement.“ As it stands, the fund Joe Hockey said could find the cure for cancer could now instead be channelled into Coalition election commitments, provided they meet the very broad purposes as stated in the bill.”
Despite these concerns, support for the MRFF is wide-ranging throughout the medical research sector, as many believe if it’ s structured correctly, the fund has the potential to increase the translational benefit of Australian medical research – meaning it can help improve innovation in Australian medicine.
Professor Doug Hilton, president of the Australian Association of Medical Research Institutes and director of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, says it is therefore imperative the MRFF is properly structured.
“ At the moment, the federal government supports medical research at about 60 per cent of the OECD average, and as Simon McKeon pointed out in his review, there’ s a lot we don’ t do in Australian health and medical research,” Hilton says.“ The future fund – if fully capitalised – would take us beyond the OECD average and allow us to do some pretty exciting things, especially around translation of research, and also in health productivity and health economics research.”
Hilton also agrees that public hospitals conducting medical research, such as the MacCallum Centre, fall through the cracks of National Health and Medical Research Council funding due to shortfalls in the legislation behind that body. He clarifies universities and independent medical research institutes get some of their overhead costs partially funded by the NHMRC, the federal government, and their respective state governments.
Hilton says MacCallum and similar institutions will not be excluded from MRFF funding and that legislation behind the fund is far more broad than that behind the NHMRC. He does, however, call for the fund to focus on the more neglected areas of medical research.
“ There are areas of research that have not been traditionally well funded by the NHMRC or other areas of research funding, like health economics and health productivity research,” Hilton says.“ One of the most important things is that we have a healthcare system that’ s sustainable and that as the population ages, we do things as efficiently as possible, and therefore make the money we do have for health go as far as possible – that whole area of research on the healthcare system hasn’ t been wellfunded in the past.”
The MacCallum Centre’ s Trapani reminds policymakers that Australia produces some top medical research and innovations – such as the cochlear implant and the cervical cancer vaccine. But he says in order for Australia to maintain world-class research, it must have world-class funding.“ There is an inexorable link between medical research and the Australian health system and individual patient outcomes,” Trapani says.“ We believe this should be elevated in importance, and actively encouraged in centres where the actual research translation takes place – namely in research-capable public hospitals.” ■
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