Crowdfunding leads to breakthroughs in the medical sector

Rigorous rules, countless studies and the health consequences of millions of patients have kept the medical sector wary of the kind of crowdfunding campaign that has fueled substantial investments into other industries like finance and IT. While the pace is still slow, crowdfunding has been entering the sphere of the medical industry, breaking glass ceilings in fund-raising and pushing the envelope in dealing with subjects that traditional research and methodology would have left untouched.

Crowdfunding has become the response to a crisis caused by federal budget cuts, according to Bio Science and Technology . The Congressional Research Service confirms that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has reduced the number of projects it has approved from 33 percent in 1997 to a mere 19 percent in 2011. An updated report by the Daily Star Albany says that NIH’s clinical trials have been cut down from 1,376 in 2006 to 1,048 in 2014. After no less than NIH head Francis Collins warned in 2015 that continued cuts can cost America its global leadership in medical research, Republican and Democrat senators , as of this writing, are still trying to find common ground on a proposed bill that will increase support for government medical research projects.

Meanwhile, while both parties scramble to get their act together, insufficient resources have terminated research projects and downsized scientific and medical labs. Senior scientists choose to retire, while their discouraged protégés have shifted to more lucrative careers.

Some enterprising souls in the medical community would not be deterred, however, and these are the ones who have turned to crowdfunding campaigns to fuel the projects they regard as necessary to safeguard public health while nurturing medical research.

According to Bio Science Technology, one of the first innovators was a group of scientists who had been frustrated by the NIH’s inability to come up with a computer algorithm that can predict epileptic seizure after 15 years of unproductive attempts. The scientists took to social media and emailed an invitation, along with the necessary documents, to other doctors as well as “computer geeks” to join their research. Results from these non-traditional sources soon poured in, with a formula that can foretell a patient’s epileptic seizure with 84 percent accuracy. Their success was rewarded with the funding that continued the research.

The crowdfunding campaign engineered by an intrepid group, composed of British and Kenyan physicians in Africa, is geared more towards treatment and education. Like their epileptic-focused colleagues, they had to think out of the box because they were confronting a health issue that literally spelled life or death for African babies who were at risk of dying the very same day they were born. As chronicled by the Oxford Mail , Professor Mike English and Dr Chris Paton struggled with the painful reality that 1 million African newborn infants died 28 days after they were delivered from their mothers’ wombs due to the poor quality of health infrastructure in the continent. English and Paton’s group was far too few to reach out to the expectant mothers, or spread out throughout the region to teach the 2.5 million African workers on how to boost the pregnant women’s health or prolong the lives of the babies.

It was in these circumstances that the mobile gaming platform LIFE (Life Saving Emergencies) was born. Eighty percent of all African health workers and nurses had smartphones. Instead of a classroom lecture or a medical workshop, English and Paton devised a teaching software that could instruct the health care workers on emergency procedures that will save the life of the mother and lengthen that of the newborn until a means can be found to improve their health.

LIFE used a gaming approach to make the online teaching course more attractive and effective for the tech-savvy health care worker. The English-Paton team is crowdfunding for £100,000 (AUD$187,340) to develop, manufacture, and distribute the platform. Oxford’s Templeton College, their home base, will host a dinner with English for the crowdfunder who gives £1,000 (AUD$1,873).

Crowdfunding as well as crowdsourcing ideas are the goals of the University of Michigan in launching its Wellspringboard.org project. According to The Sleep Review Magazine , the university, along with its medical research department, is actively asking its community of students, faculty members and patients the health issues they want to prioritise for research. Though the project is open to all ideas, five categories will receive the initial spotlight: cardiovascular illnesses of children, the kinds of cancer afflicting kids, diabetes in adults, inflammatory digestive diseases and sleep problems like insomnia.

Once a health issue comes out on the site, the other community members have 30 days to cast their votes to make it the center for the first research projects. Afterwards, Wellspringboard.org will encourage the rest to support the actual research and development through crowdfunding.

Crowdfunding campaigns often come hand-in-hand with research in the medical community. Unlike the other industries, newbie investors see medical research as important to their daily lives; at the same time, they want to augment their own limited knowledge of it.

Med-X, Inc., a health and wellness company inviting crowdfunders and investors to take an active part in the booming medical marijuana business, is generating its information campaign with its own Marijuana Times online publication. Medical cannabis has been used to treat brain injury, nerve pain, chemotherapy-induced nausea and loss of appetite, among other conditions.

Med-X, Inc’s own product, which has been conceptualised, grown, farmed and developed in American soil, is rooted in a breakthrough pest-free soil that ensures that the cannabis plant gives a robust, strong, and medically healthy yield. The 15-year-old Nevada-based company’s information campaign gives the investor and consumer alike a close, informed look at the highly regulated and stringent process as well as the advantages of medical marijuana. It also debunks the myths that have been associated with the drug which is usually taken in liquid or pill form.

Med-X also shows potential investors the projected earnings of investing in medical marijuana. Start Engine projects an industry growth rate from $5.4 billion (AUD$7.04 billion) in 2015 to $21.8 billion (AUD$28.4 billion) in 2020. At 60 cents (AUD$0.78) share, even young hardworking Americans at their first job out of college can become a shareholder.

Crowdfunding may raise a few eyebrows in the medical community which has long been rooted in a more traditional kind of research and peer-related approval. However, the impetus provided by health practitioners themselves to solicit funding and ideas from their colleagues as well as the greater community of patients may soon build momentum and accelerate. Health is a serious issue that affect millions and the constant search for treatments and technologies to combat disease cannot be kept at bay indefinitely –especially if there are investors, entrepreneurs and concerned citizens who are willing to put their money where their collective mouth is.