RESEARCH & FUNDING
tinue to invest in academic researchers and research teams who are likely to generate new knowledge, leading edge technologies and competitive enterprises.
THE IMPORTANCE
OF
R&D
But just how important is R&D to the pharmaceutical sector in Ireland? “It is vital,” Dr Treacy answers unequivocally. “Look at the amount of revenue spent on research. Typically, approximately 20% of annual revenue from the big pharmaceutical companies like GSK, Merck or Pfizer goes back into R&D. R&D is of huge importance in the sustainability of the industry and in the development of a pipeline for new and innovative products. As many of the blockbuster drugs often only have 10 years of protective sales and use by patients, manufacturers must constantly generate new and better products. This can only occur with sustained invested in research, and this can include investment and collaboration with academic researchers.” SFI’s funding involves a rigorous decision-making process, explains Dr Treacy. For example, The PI programme can allocate up to €5m over five years (€1m p.a). As a result, it is important that the process of investment is extremely thorough. “We use International Peers to assess the quality of the PI applications,” he explains. “These peers/experts are located across the globe (USA, Europe, Asia or Australia). We do not use Peers in Ireland in order to avoid any conflict of interests. International Peers are mainly found in academia but they are also in the private sector.” In-house SFI Programme Officers with specific expertise also work on each application and assess the Peer’s comments. “We bring our in-house expertise to bear on the comments and make the recommendation on whether to fund or not,” Dr Treacy continues. “We also ask strategic ques-
tions. How does this proposed research link to the embedded industries in Ireland? Even if it doesn’t link, how is it valuable for those sectors? How might companies in Ireland find this research useful?”
THE ALLOCATION
OF
FUNDING
Where is SFI funding allocated? In August 2006, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) announced that it was establishing a research project into gastrointestinal diseases, in collaboration with Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre (APC), an SFI-funded Centre (CSET) based in UCC. This project would be jointly supported by IDA Ireland and SFI, involving investment of up to €13.7m. Dr Treacy notes: “APC are researching the area of probiotics and functional foods and, arising from that research, Proctor & Gamble are now performing market research studies in preparation for the launch of a probiotic proactive medicine into the US market.” The rapid turnaround of APC’s research inot a potential product is unusual, but it is evidence of the importance of R&D. “We fund high quality fundamental research, applied research, and translation research.” Last year, €1.8m was awarded to the Centre for Research on Adaptive Nanostructures and Nanodevices (CRANN), Trinity College Dublin, in order to facilitate research, conducted in association with Hewlett Packard, in the field of carbon nanotube composites. A further €24m in funding awards were allocated to 158 researchers, spread across 11 third-level institutions, under the Research Frontiers Programme. This SFI programme supports “highquality, novel exploratory research in the third-level sector in fields embracing the biosciences, chemistry, earth sciences, mathematics and computer science, physics and engineering.”
EDUCATION Education is evidently an important area for SFI. “It is critical that if we want peo42