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Health research serves profit rather than the public

Most health research is driven by commercial interests, leading to significant gaps in healthcare understanding, a report from the King’s Fund thinktank concludes.

Although Britain spends more than £4bn a year on health-related research, most comes from private pharmaceutical companies and is biased towards profit-making, according to the report Public Interest, Private Decisions.

The main focus of pharmaceutical research is developing new patents for conventional medicines to treat common illnesses and yield the highest profits. This means that treatment for rare diseases, prevention, complementary therapies and better healthcare management are often neglected. Even for cancer, which attracts large sums from private, public and charitable funders, some forms of the disease attract less resources, the report says.

Report co-author Anthony Harrison said: Health-related research is not sufficiently diverse to meet the public’s needs because decisions about what is funded are dominated by the most powerful professional and commercial interests.’

The report calls on the government to set up a body to ensure public funds are targeted at areas of neglect and to consider how company research could be modified to take account of public interest.

Public Interest, Private Decisions, £17, The King’s Fund.