Science
British Heart Foundation warns research investment could halve this year due to coronavirus
We are calling for Government action to support charity research in the wake of the coronavirus crisis, which we anticipate will cut our annual research budget by £50 million.
We have joined the Association of Medical Research Charities and 151 of its members, including Cancer Research UK and Parkinson’s UK, to call on the UK Government to match charity funded research for the next three years.
The devastating impact of the Covid-19 pandemic means that our net income, and resulting investment in new research, is likely to drop by up to 50 per cent this year.
Such a sharp fall could have a catastrophic impact on UK cardiovascular research, the research careers of thousands of young scientists, and advances in diagnostics, treatments and cures for people with heart and circulatory diseases.
We fund over half of non-commercial research into heart and circulatory diseases in the UK. But loss of income from shop closures and cancellation of fundraising events including our iconic London to Brighton bike ride has created the biggest crisis in our 60-year history.
60 years of public support
Our Chief Executive, Dr Charmaine Griffiths, said: “The Covid-19 pandemic has been devastating for so many people, especially those with heart and circulatory diseases.
“Thanks to 60 years of public support, the BHF has grown to become the UK’s leading funder of non-commercial cardiovascular research that has saved and improved millions of lives. We now face an unprecedented research funding crisis that threatens to arrest real progress.
“The shockwaves from such a drop in funding for heart and circulatory disease research will be profound, stalling progress in making the discoveries we urgently need. We are urging Government to establish a vital Life Sciences-Charity Partnership Fund to match research charity funding and help protect world-class research across the UK’s four nations.”
The BHF currently supports a portfolio of £446 million of research at 47 institutions across the UK. This includes funding the posts of more than 1700 researchers, hundreds of whom are in the early stages of their scientific career.
Charity funding is often leveraged to attract additional funding, and it’s an integral part of the research pipeline in moving academic science into a position where it can attract commercial funding for new diagnostics and treatments.
Protecting research
Professor Sir Nilesh Samani, our Medical Director, said: “Such a sharp drop in research investment will have severe consequences. Ultimately, patients and the public will suffer as the discovery and development of new ways of preventing, diagnosing and treating heart and circulatory diseases will slow. The lifeblood of making advances through research are the scientists we fund. We could potentially lose a generation of researchers because of the reduction in our funding, and this loss could take a long time to recover.
“There is also the wider impact for the UK’s role at the forefront of scientific research. Such a steep reduction in investment will inevitably diminish the country’s reputation as a world leader in developing medical breakthroughs that save lives. We cannot afford to let this happen during a pandemic which itself has underlined the critical role research plays.”
“An investment in charity research, is an investment in the UK’s research pipeline. The stringent peer review process used by us and other research charities, involving world leading scientists from across the globe, mean the Government can be assured that funding is directed at the very best science.”
We released the figures as our Chief Executive joined chief executives from the Association of Medical Research Charities (AMRC), Cancer Research UK and Parkinson’s UK to urge the Government to introduce a Life Sciences Partnership Fund.
Medical research charities accounted for £1.9 billion (51%) of non-commercial research funding in the UK in 2019. However, the AMRC project a £310 million shortfall in this spend over the next year and expect it to take nearly five years for funding to return to previous levels.
Securing future breakthroughs
Professor Charalambos Antoniades, BHF Senior Fellow at the University of Oxford, used one of our grants of £300,000 to develop artificial intelligence technology that uses hospital CT scan data to predict people’s risk of heart attack or stroke so they can be given appropriate preventive treatment.
Professor Antoniades has leveraged this grant, and the progress made, to start a spinout company that attracted many millions of pounds of additional, including international, investment to employ staff and build an AI system, ready for clinical use. The technology will be ready to roll out in the NHS in the next few months.
Professor Antoniades said: "Without funding from the BHF, and charities like it, projects like mine will struggle to get off the ground. Charities often provide the all-important initial funding which allows research teams like mine to develop their early research into viable proposals for tests and treatments that can leverage additional investment. Such an investment benefits people with heart disease, our NHS and UK science in general.
"All medical research exists to benefit patients. Unfortunately, it is patients who will pay the price if we’re not able to protect UK research from a cliff-edge fall in charity funding."