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Rate of medical research investment declines in U.S., increases globally: study

Xinhua, January 14, 2015 Adjust font size:

The rate of investment in medical research in the U.S. declined between 2004 and 2012 while there has been an increase in research investment globally, particularly in Asia, a U.S. study said Tuesday.

The study, published in the U.S. journal JAMA, revealed that U. S. medical research spending increased 6 percent per year from 1994 to 2004 but only 0.8 percent per year between 2004 and 2012.

"Although the U.S. still has a strong lead in absolute terms, recent trends indicate that U.S. leadership is eroding," said a statement from co-author Sarah Cairns-Smith of the Boston Consulting Group.

In 2012, total U.S. funding of biomedical and health services research was about 117 billion U.S. dollars, or about 0.7 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GPD).

In Asia, South Korea and China now each spend about 2 percent of GDP, said the study, predicting that China could surpass the U. S. in absolute funding within a decade.

The shift in U.S. research funding by both public and private sources affected its contribution to the global total, said the study led by Hamilton Moses III of the Alerion Institute and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

U.S. government research funding declined from 57 percent in 2004 to 50 percent in 2012 of the global total, it said. Similarly, U.S. companies decreased funding from 50 percent to 41 percent during the same period.

This has caused the total U.S. share of global research funding to decline from 57 percent in 2004 to 44 percent in 2012.

Meanwhile, Asia, particularly China, tripled investment from 2. 6 billion dollars in 2004 to 9.7 billion dollars in 2012, and the share of Asian economies increased from 13 percent to 20 percent during the same period, the study found.

Patent output may reflect these declines, said the study. The U. S. share of life science patents declined from 57 percent in 1981 to 51 percent in 2011, as did those considered most valuable, from 73 percent in 1981 to 59 percent in 2011.

"Given global trends, the United States will relinquish its historical innovation lead in the next decade unless ... measures are undertaken," the researchers wrote. Enditem