R&D funding flows for neglected diseases by disease, year and funding category

Published: December 2022

The product-related R&D funding flows for neglected diseases are collected from the Policy Cures Research G-FINDER survey. For 2020, funding data were collected from private, public and philanthropic organizations, on all types of product-related R&D, basic research and platform technology covering neglected diseases (note: the disease names have been reclassified here, see the classifications and standards section for the rationale and approach).

R&D funding flows for neglected diseases (G-FINDER), by source and type of funding

What you see | Scope and limitations | Data sources | Previous Versions

What you see

The data visualization illustrates funding trends by year, and % differences with the previous year (chart A), by disease (chart B), and type of R&D (chart C) for the period 2007-2020. All funding data has been adjusted for inflation, and is reported in 2020 US dollars (US$) (adjustment performed by the data source).

Points to note:

The G-Finder survey data underestimate the total R&D investments for these diseases as reporting is incomplete and needs to be interpreted cautiously due to the scope restrictions of the survey.
In 2020, investments in neglected diseases R&D amounted to around US$ 3.95 billion.
As was the case in 2019, investments in neglected diseases R&D during 2020 remained highly focused on HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. Together, investments in R&D for these three diseases account for around 68% of total investments in neglected diseases with US$ 1,370 million for HIV/AIDS, US$ 688 million for tuberculosis, and US$ 629 million for malaria (click on the bar for 2020 on chart A to display data in chart B).
Investments in R&D for several neglected diseases have declined in 2020 compared to 2019, notably for leptospirosis (-29%), mycetoma (-22%) and leprosy (-17%). On the other hand, some diseases have seen an increase in investments in 2020, notably investments for hepatitis B (+66 %), hepatitis C (+46%) and snakebite envenoming (+31%) (click on each disease on chart B and see the bar for 2020 on chart A)
Over the 14 years of investments on R&D for neglected diseases (2007-2020):
--vaccine R&D continues to occupy the top position in terms of investments in R&D for neglected diseases (US$ 17.28 billion) followed by basic research (US$ 10.85 billion), and medicines R&D (US$ 10.46 billion) with a decrease of 10%, 3% and 5% respectively, between 2019 and 2020 (click on the bar for each category in chart C and compare year to year differences in chart A by hovering over the bars or year points on the trend line).
-- US$ 1.5 billion of unspecified R&D funding accounts for investments that, while directed to specific diseases, have not been allocated to a specific R&D funding category(click on the “unspecified R&D” category in chart C to display the diseases concerned in chart B).

Scope and limitations of the data source

The data must be interpreted cautiously because of the specific scope restrictions of the G-FINDER survey (see link below for detail). The scope of the G-FINDER survey is determined by applying the following three criteria for neglected diseases. (R&D investments which do not meet these criteria are excluded.)

The disease disproportionately affects people in developing countries.
There is a need for new products (i.e. there is either no existing product, or improved or additional products are needed).
There is market failure in developing these new products (i.e. there is an insufficient commercial market to attract R&D by private industry).

In addition, the funding data from industry is presented in an aggregated form for confidentiality. This means that funding levels by disease and R&D category substantially underestimate the actual investments in these diseases within the scope of G-FINDER described above.

The COVID-19 pandemic slightly altered the participation in the 2019 G-Finder survey, which meant that some of the reduction in funding in the previous analysis was the result of the reduced reporting rather than an actual drop in funding. In the 2020 report, some of these 2019 figures were reviewed to correct these drops and supersede the numbers presented in previous analysis.

Histoplasmosis (here under Mycoses) and scabies were added to the G-Finder survey scope. This includes R&D for all product categories for both diseases, all basic research for histoplasmosis and basic research that is explicitly targeted at low- and middle-income country (LMIC)-related disease burden for scabies. LMIC-focused basic research on rotavirus and Enterotoxigenic E. coli (both under Diarrhoeal diseases) were also included. And restriction requiring hepatitis C vaccine R&D to be LMIC-specific has been relaxed. This increase in scope accounts for no more than 0.2% of global funding in 2020.

To explore the data further

Select a single year (by clicking on a time point on the trend line or on the year-specific bar) to filter annual funding data by disease and R&D type and to compare year to year estimates and differences (chart A).
Select a disease to filter annual funding data by year and R&D type (chart B).
Select by R&D type to filter annual funding data by year and diseases
Hover the cursor on a bar in a graphic to see more information in a popup window (e.g. year, investment amount, % difference (with previous year), disease, R&D type)
Undo a selection by clicking ‘undo’ or ‘reset’ near the bottom of the page or by clicking the same element again.

Data sources

G-FINDER scope and restrictions

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