Money, money, money…
The financial side of NET cancer has been much in my mind the last couple of weeks. It began with the revelation that a potential cure is languishing in a freezer in Sweden because we do not have the money to move it into even a Phase I trial. It continued as I toted up the final figures for the Jimmy Fund Marathon Walk Campaign we put together with Caring for Carcinoid.
…where there are no patents there are no profits…
The effort required to raise even $10,000 from small donors is enormous. The Relay for Life of Greater Fall River raised $277,000 last year–a lot more than the $10,700 I raised for the Marathon Walk. But significantly more than 1000 people were directly involved in that effort. And they have the backing of the American Cancer Society.
The importance of small donors
It isn’t that small donors are not important, however. The $5, $10, and $25 donations do add up to substantial money when they are all taken together. The Jimmy Fund Marathon Walk last weekend raised several million dollars before it was all said and done. The Pan Mass Challenge raised tens of millions. Both build those millions out of tens of thousands of small donations.
But prospecting for donors with deep pockets is an equally arduous task…
And that money does not come with major restrictions on it. That means it can be used to do the kinds of research neither drug companies nor governments will fund. Creating an animal model for NET cancer–or any disease–for example, is the kind of necessary pure research that has to be done–but that neither government nor private enterprise will fund.
Those small, unrestricted donations can also attract matching funds from larger foundations and non-profits that need evidence that there is an interest among the general public in a specific disease. Our Walking with Jane Dybowski Fund helps attract more money to NET cancer research at Dana-Farber because it demonstrates a significant number of people have an interest in the disease.
Small fish attract big fish
Seed money matters just as much as seed corn matters to a farmer. It is a way to grow resources far beyond the initial contribution. Last year in one case, for example, $5000 in small donations generated an additional $10,000 for NET cancer in matching funds from a major donor.
But prospecting for donors with deep pockets is an equally arduous task–and one I think I am going to have to learn how to do sooner rather than later.
It isn’t that small donors are not important…
Which brought me this morning to something I first heard about a few years ago: venture philanthropy. Venture philanthropy is like venture capitalism but applied to charitable purposes instead. These groups try to build charitable ideas and institutions that can become self-sustaining. They bring not only their money to the table, but their expertise as well.
A drug company for orphans
There are a lot of diseases like NET cancer out there where there are too few patients to make full-time drug development worthwhile. Or the drugs, once developed, can’t be patented–and where there are no patents there are no profits to justify the expenditures.
The effort required to raise even $10,000…is enormous.
But if we developed a pharmaceutical company that was worried only about cures and not about profits–that plowed whatever profits it made into new drugs and drug trials rather than into the pockets of shareholders–then drugs like the Swedish virus would have a place to go to be tested and produced.
Such a company would never make anyone rich–but it could make a lot of underserved people healthy.
Including NET cancer patients.
