Biomedical Research Turning More to Private Funds

The pharmaceutical company Sanofi will fund up to $2.4 million a year in biomedical research at the University of Texas System under a deal announced Thursday, the latest in a trend toward more research funding from private industry as government research money dwindles.

The university system and multinational company called the agreement a mutually beneficial way to advance new discoveries in biomedicine, and said specific research to be funded has not yet been identified.

The partnership will “bring together academics and industry to find novel early research proposals that we can fund that will bring innovation and new therapies to patients,” said Paul Chew, the pharmaceutical company’s chief medical officer.

But watchdogs say universities have to be vigilant to prevent conflicts of interest as such funding relationships become more common. Private funding for research at the UT System has grown nearly 30 percent in the last five years, administrators said.

Read more: http://www.texastribune.org/2015/07/10/ut-system-partners-pharma-company/

[font color=330099]I'm beside myself to see that Sanofi is redirecting a small portion of the money that they have gouged insulin users like myself for biomedical research.[/font]