Investments in respiratory infectious disease research 1997–2010: a systematic analysis of UK funding

Head, Michael G; Fitchett, Joseph R; Cooke, Mary K; Wurie, Fatima B; Hayward, Andrew C; Lipman, Marc C; Atun, Rifat

The methods have been described in detail previously. 18 The overarching dataset was constructed by 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 Each study was screened for relevance to infectious disease research and assigned to as many primary disease categories as appropriate. 19 Within each category, topic-specific sub-sections (including specific pathogen or disease) were documented. Studies were also allocated to one of four categories along the R&D value chain: pre-clinical; phase 1, 2, or 3; product development; and implementation and operational research 19 . Funders were either considered in their own right, or were grouped into categories, such as in-house university funding, research charities, and government departments. A total of 26 funder categories were used. 19 This categorisation was 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 There was limited funding for pneumococcal and pneumonia research. Whilst infections such as meningitis may be in decline in some countries due to successful introduction of new vaccines, 22 there are still many areas globally with weak health systems where pneumococcal incidence is high.