Jakovljevic Mihajlo, Deceuninck Pierre, Pistollato Francesca, Daskalopoulos Evangelos, Bernasconi Camilla, Carausu Florabela, Rosa Matilde, Progri Artemis, Makarieva Martina, Krstic Kristijan
UNESCO - The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), Trieste, Italy.
Shaanxi University of Technology, Hantai District, Hanzhong, 723099, Shaanxi, China.
Cost Eff Resour Alloc. 2024 Jun 16;22(1):51. doi: 10.1186/s12962-024-00540-5.
Alzheimer's disease (AD), breast cancer (BC) and prostate cancer (PC) continue to be high in the research and innovation agenda of the European Commission (EC). This is due to their exceptionally large burden to the national health systems, the profound economic effects of opportunity costs attributable to decreased working ability, premature mortality and the ever-increasing demand for both hospital and home-based medical care. Over the last two decades, the EC has been steadily increasing both the number of proposals being funded and the amounts of financial resources being allocated to these fields of research. This trend has continued throughout four consecutive science funding cycles, namely framework programme (FP)5, FP6, FP7 and Horizon 2020 (H2020). We performed a retrospective assessment of the outputs and outcomes of EC funding in AD, BC and PC research over the 1999-2019 period by means of selected indicators. These indicators were assessed for their ability to screen the past, present and future for an array of causal relationships and long-term trends in clinical, epidemiological and public health sphere, while considering also the broader socioeconomic impact of funded research on the society at large. This analysis shows that public-private partnerships with large industry and university-based consortia have led to some of the most impactful proposals being funded over the analysed time period. New pharmaceuticals, small molecules and monoclonal antibodies alike, along with screening and prevention, have been the most prominent sources of innovation in BC and PC, extending patients' survival and enhancing their quality of life. Unlike oncology, dementia drug development has been way less successful, with only minor improvements related to the quality of supportive medical care for symptoms and more sensitive diagnostics, without any ground-breaking disease-modifying treatment(s). Significant progresses in imaging diagnostics and nanotechnology have been largely driven by the participation of medical device industry multinational companies. Clinical trials funded by the EC were conducted, leading to the development of brand-new drug molecules featuring novel mechanisms of action. Some prominent cases of breakthrough discoveries serve as evidence for the European capability to generate cutting-edge technological innovation in biomedicine. Less productive areas of research may be reconsidered as priorities when shaping the new agenda for forthcoming science funding programmes.
阿尔茨海默病（AD）、乳腺癌（BC）和前列腺癌（PC）在欧盟委员会（EC）的研究与创新议程中一直占据重要地位。这是因为它们给国家卫生系统带来了异常沉重的负担，因工作能力下降、过早死亡以及对医院和居家医疗护理的需求不断增加而产生的机会成本具有深远的经济影响。在过去二十年里，欧盟委员会一直在稳步增加资助提案的数量以及分配给这些研究领域的财政资源。这一趋势在连续四个科学资助周期中持续存在，即框架计划（FP）5、FP6、FP7和地平线2020（H2020）。我们通过选定的指标对1999 - 2019年期间欧盟委员会在AD、BC和PC研究方面的资助产出和成果进行了回顾性评估。对这些指标进行了评估，以了解它们筛选临床、流行病学和公共卫生领域一系列因果关系和长期趋势的过去、现在和未来情况的能力，同时还考虑了资助研究对整个社会更广泛的社会经济影响。该分析表明，与大型产业和大学联盟的公私伙伴关系促成了分析时间段内一些最具影响力的提案获得资助。新药物、小分子和单克隆抗体，以及筛查和预防，一直是BC和PC领域最突出的创新来源，延长了患者的生存期并提高了他们的生活质量。与肿瘤学不同，痴呆症药物研发的成功率要低得多，仅在支持性症状医疗护理质量和更灵敏诊断方面有小幅改善，没有任何突破性的疾病修正治疗方法。成像诊断和纳米技术的重大进展在很大程度上是由医疗设备行业跨国公司的参与推动的。欧盟委员会资助开展了临床试验，促成了具有全新作用机制的全新药物分子的研发。一些重大突破发现的突出案例证明了欧洲在生物医学领域产生前沿技术创新的能力。在制定即将到来的科学资助计划的新议程时，研究效率较低的领域可能会被重新视为优先事项。
