Medical research trust to receive R4.5 million

Stats show that research in South Africa has declined over the last 10 years and that its research budgets are tiny in comparison to international budgets. There is also a lack of black researchers, as a large number of black students are forced to seek employment immediately after graduating rather than going on to complete their honours, PhDs or doctorates because they need to support their family and community and repay student loans.

The company will award R1.5 million a year for three years for academic research in high-level non-interventional studies including doctoral and post-doctoral work that will generate significant data currently not available. The funding will be distributed to qualifying researchers through the trust.

Complete autonomy

Managed by a scientific steering committee, six academics from various institutions around the country have been appointed to screen, review and ultimately with full autonomy, decide on the apportionment of the grant funding. The company will have no influence nor participate in any decisions made regarding the fund allocation. This will be solely at the discretion of the professors administering the disbursements.

Chairman of the AstraZeneca Research Trust, Prof Reid Ally says, "We have been given carte blanche to decide which proposals will receive funding. We can look at non-communicable diseases... to document firstly how frequent the disease is and then look at what can we do to change what is happening to us; whether this is diet related, environmental or genetic."

AstraZeneca company president, South Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa, Karl Friberg says, "Through the Trust we will address the challenge of realising the full potential of Africa, while at the same time continuing to position the company as one that co-creates with local communities and academia, to meet the huge unmet need among African patients."

As a global ethical company, it invests over US $4 billion each year in R&D and its focus is on the development of prescription medicines in seven therapeutic areas. According to Friberg, after several tough years, the company has a strong pipeline again, with over 12 new chemical entities in phase three projects.

"In the spirit of the project and committed to unprejudiced research findings, we have made no attempt to limit the research to the therapeutic areas we are operational in. We are encouraging the generation of much needed epidemiological data on non-communicable and other diseases; data we expect will come from high level studies," continues Friberg.

Non-communicable disease time bomb

"The global healthcare landscape is changing at a rapid pace and in South Africa and the African continent we are sitting on a veritable non-communicable disease time bomb. Cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, obesity, metabolic syndrome and smoking related illnesses are becoming increasingly prevalent and are the scourge of Africa. The continent is ill equipped to fight these modern day illnesses; it does not have the empirical data to properly manage and treat these potentially life-threatening diseases.

The pharmaceutical industry has not traditionally invested in this area of research with funding customarily being allocated to compound and chemical entity developments. With extensive investment into research on HIV infection and TB, there has been little investment and focus on non-communicable diseases.

"Without current, accurate data, we have no line of sight to the extent of the problem, nor how to manage it. There is virtually no data on black females in even the most basic disease areas. We want to change this and be part of the data generation process - even if we cannot use it directly as a company - we want to be part of the solution. We hope our grants will help us meet a huge area of unmet need, ensuring the reprioritisation of healthcare initiatives and reshaping the landscape as we know it."

Submissions due in now

Submissions for grant funding can be made during the course of 2014 - but all applications for 2014 funding must be received by the Trust at the end of the first quarter of 2014. A six-week review period will be allocated for the scientific steering committee to make the necessary decisions. Grant awards will be announced and awarded in May 2014.

AstraZeneca supports this initiative unconditionally. For more information, go to www.astrazenecatrust.co.za.