One of the more peculiar measures to come out of the Federal Budget was the announced development of a $20 billion Medical Research Future Fund, which is to be funded entirely from the $7 co-payment on GP visits, a $5 increase in Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme prescriptions ($0.80 for concession holders), and savings from medical expenditure.
The fund was marketed in the Budget as being “the biggest medical research endowment fund in the world” within six years, with interest earnings that would be used to fund medical research and discover “cures of the future”.
Yesterday, Houses & Holes reported how the Fund was a late addition to the Budget, and that health department officials only began working on the policy in April, just weeks before it was announced. Moreover, Australian Chief Scientist, Ian Chubb, was not consulted about the Fund before it was announced.
Now, Australian medical companies, Benitec and Sienna Cancer Diagnostics, have slammed the Fund, arguing that big international drug companies, not Australians, will reap the benefits:
Health Minister Peter Dutton has raised the ire of researchers by ruling out using money from the $20 billion medical research fund to commercialise Australian medical breakthroughs.
“The government with taxpayers money is not a hedge fund, we’re not an entrepreneur with a huge appetite for high risk, high return,” Mr Dutton said when asked by News Corp Australia if money from the fund would be used to help turn research into pills or treatments…
“If the government won’t spend money from the $20 billion medical research fund on translating research into commercial products it will get a whole lot of nice papers but it won’t benefit the economy,” [Benitec chief] Dr French told News Corp Australia…
Sienna chief Kerry Heggarty says she feels passionately about keeping the profits from this breakthrough and any others in Australia.
“Some of the $20 billion should be spent on commercialisation otherwise we’re not keeping the money in Australia and it will go to US or European companies,” she says.
Clearly, the Medical Research Future Fund was developed merely to distract the electorate from co-payments on medical services, as well as the cuts to state hospital funding announced in the Budget. And without funding to commercialise medical breakthroughs, it holds little value to Australians – certainly not to justify depriving people of actual medical attention.
It is a textbook case of policy making on the fly, and severely undermines the Government’s credibility.
