The Minister for Health, Greg Hunt has announced the detail around the allocation of the funding into clinical trials in Australia as handed down at the 2017 Budget last Tuesday.
Key elements of the MRFF funding boost for clinical trials:
- Supporting research in public health and rare diseases: $13 million will be used to support research into a number of public health areas which contribute to the highest burden of disease, including the application of precision medicine.
- More fellowships for clinical researchers: The Turnbull Government will invest $8 million to ensure the supply of high-quality next-generation research talent through boosting the scale of existing NHMC fellowship schemes. Fellowships awards will be announced from early 2017-18.
- Increasing collaboration in research: the Turnbull Government is also providing $7 million over four years to help redesign State and Territory clinical trial operating systems.
- Supporting clinical trials and registries – clinical trials networks: the investment is $5 million over four years and includes networks of investigators and service providers that work together to identify and evaluate new approaches to optimise healthcare effectiveness.
- Adolescents and young adolescents with cancer: The funding of $5 million for new targeted clinical trial activity for adolescents and young adolescents with cancer, to be administered by CanTeen that was announced as part of the Federal Budget.
As part of the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF), the Government is continuing to deliver on its promise to establish a $20 billion capital in the fund, with this target to be achieved in 2020-21.
Read the full media release by Research Australia HERE.
