Health Minister Anne McLellan and Dr. Alan Bernstein both foresee a $500-million raise for the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). But the timing of the increase is another matter.
At BIO 2002, a huge international biotechnology conference held in Toronto in June, McLellan said Ottawa will increase CIHR funding to $1 billion “in the near future.” Bernstein, the CIHR president, says the “near future” is 3 years and that he is only echoing McLellan and her predecessor, Allan Rock, when he calls for funding growth to $1 billion by 2005. CIHR had a $560-million budget this year. Its first budget, in 2000, was $365 million. CIHR, which replaced the Medical Research Council of Canada in June 2000, is the country's premier federal agency for health research.
“Our increases over the last couple of years have been phenomenal,” says Bernstein. “But, obviously, it's not quite enough to meet our mandate, and that's why we've set a goal of $1 billion for 2005.” He says Canada needs increased funding if it is to remain “a major player” in health research. “We can't be a bystander.”
He says Canada currently invests a much smaller amount in health research per capita than the US. And at a time when the country is investing less than 1% of health system spending on research, a law in the United Kingdom mandates that 1% of health spending must be devoted to health service research alone.
Canada's spending on biotechnology research includes the investment of more than $4.6 billion in Genome Canada, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, Canada Research Chairs and Technology Partnership Canada.
The government has also announced $88 million in funding for 51 CIHR Strategic Training Program Grants that are supposed to help researchers develop their skills by working with experienced colleagues; 20 grants, worth almost $34 million, involve biotechnology. CIHR is responsible for some of the funding, says Bernstein, and charities and industry partners are also involved.
BIO 2002 attracted 15 565 registrants, including visitors from 47 US states and 23 countries. More than 1050 exhibitors took part. — Alex Robinson, Ottawa