EU lags behind US in public spending on cancer research: survey

The EU is massively behind the US in the allocation of public funding to cancer research, according to a European Commission-funded survey. The crux of the problem is that Member States are failing to adequately support cancer research, leaving EU funds to fill the gap rather than provide added impact. The survey also noted the growing contribution of the non-profit philanthropic sector to cancer research.

It has previously been acknowledged that the EU fails to match the private or public funding levels of the US in cancer research and development, but just how large the gap is for public funding has not been appreciated until now.

The survey, published in the Peer-reviewed Open Access Journal (PLoS), looked at public spending in 2002/2003 across the entire EU, European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and associated countries, including funding by national public funding organisations, the Commission and trans-European organisations. It compared this European funding to US spending for the same period and found that collectively, the European countries spent EUR 1.43 billion on public cancer research compared to EUR 3.6 billion spent by the US National Cancer Institute. This amounted to EUR 2.56 per person, compared with EUR 17.63 per person in the US. As a percentage of GDP, the US spent four times as much as was the average in Europe.

According to the survey, much of the blame for this funding deficit can be attributed to the disparity of spending across European countries, which is particularly pronounced in the 10 new Member States. Indeed, the gap between the US and the EU is reduced five-fold if US spending is compared with only that of the EU-15 countries. Collectively, the EU-25 contributes on average EUR 1.3 billion annually to public cancer research. This ranges from EUR 388 million in the UK to EUR 0 in Malta, with three countries spending greater than EUR 100 million, nine greater than EUR 10 million, and 10 less than EUR 1 million.

This funding deficit in cancer research at a Member State level, the survey finds, is resulting in the use of EU to subsidise national kitties rather than provide added impact and value. Given the need for the whole of the enlarged EU to engage in the Lisbon agenda and research spending to 3 per cent of the EU's GDP by 2010, the survey argues that urgent and specific measures are needed.

Some of the additional funds required may come from the charitable sector, which the survey found already contributed 50 per cent of the total amount spent on public cancer research in 2002/2003, with 65 charities across 23 countries contributing €667.3 million to cancer research.

The European Commission also comes in for criticism from the authors of the survey, who claim that research spending has been inadequate to support current research needs of cancer at a trans-European level. In 2002/2003, the Commission contributed EUR 90 million, just six per cent of identified direct cancer research spending (EUR 1.3 billion). And while this figure is likely to be an underestimation, as cancer research is being funded by other indirect Commission streams, the survey finds that it does not quite match EU tobacco subsidies, which it claims amount to EUR 1 billion. Under the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6), only one in five eligible cancer research proposals were supported, and only 50 per cent of projects judged to be of a very high quality were financed.

The survey's authors hope that, under FP7, the situation may be turned around. 'FP7 could nevertheless substantially improve cancer research and its applications to new therapeutics and diagnostics. It could make such improvements if, and only if, there is a substantial increase in EU spending (both at a central level and at a Member State level) directed specifically at clinical cancer research. Furthermore, this increased spending at EU level must be tied to a more transparent approach to funding truly trans-EU cancer research,' concludes the survey.

The survey's findings are timely reminder of the need to support cancer research given that cancer rates are predicted to increase by 50 per cent to 15 million new cases worldwide in the year 2020.