U.S. risks losing out to Asia in medical research

have pledged long-term increases in funding.”

He notes that the number of clinical trials of new medical ideas in the United States has fallen, while the number in countries like China has grown.

Sun and his co-authors warn that this trend could lead to long-term economic damage for the United States and the loss of its stature as a global leader in the field. “Powerful incentives that can retain an elite biomedical research workforce are necessary to strengthen the U.S. health care system and economy,” they write.

The stakes of this Asian rise and American decline are highest for current and future postdoctoral fellows — young researchers who have finished their M.D. or Ph.D. training and have decided to go into research as a career.

Post-doctoral training in a laboratory or health research specialty usually primes them for their first full-time research position — and their first grant applications as independent researchers.

Winning grants year after year is vital to a research career — making sustained federal research support important.

With grant dollars becoming harder to find in the United States, however, and easier to obtain in Asia, young researchers may choose to take their very portable talents overseas.

In fact, China has started programs to attract young Chinese scientists back to China after training in the United States.

With English being the common language for researchers in India and Singapore, those nations may attract increasing numbers of American-born researchers — such as Jeffrey Steinberg, Ph.D., Sun’s co-author and personal friend. He now works at the Singapore Bioimaging Consortium, supported by the nation’s Agency for Science, Technology and Research.

“In researching this article, we were surprised at how well-developed other countries’ plans are for including medical research and scientific research as part of long-term goals,” says Sun. “All of them have a fairly well-defined plan, which is part of their overall efforts to become economic powers. Whereas in the U.S., NIH funding is considered as just another part of the annual budget, and can be cut at any time.”

The American approach to budgeting for medical research appears to ignore the long-term economic payoff of sustained research, says Sun. “Simply cutting research spending off will end a lot of projects immediately. Then, all these well-trained people — what are they going to do? Many will go somewhere where their work may be more appreciated.”

— Read more in Gordon H. Sun et al., “The Calculus of National Medical Research Policy — The United States versus Asia,” New England Journal of Medicine 367 (23 August 2012):367:687-90 (DOI: 10.1056/NEJMicm1206643)