Ian Frazer appointed chair of $20bn Medical Research Future...

Ian Frazer appointed chair of $20bn Medical Research Future Fund.

• THE AUSTRALIAN
• APRIL 3, 2016 6:22PM
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• Jennine Khalik
  
  Journalist
  Sydney
  

Professor Ian Frazer, leading Australian Immunologist and 2006 Australian of the Year, has been appointed chair of the $20 billion Medical Research Future Fund. Picture: Ray Strange

Former Australian of the Year Ian Frazer has been appointed chair of the federal government’s $20 billion Medical Research Future Fund.

Minister for Health, Sussan Ley, will announce tomorrow the eight-member board that will advise the government on how to allocate the Fund, described as the “single largest investment in medical research ever made in this country”.
The MRFF is expected to eventually provide around $1 billion a year in additional funding for health and medical research.
Professor Frazer, scientist and president of Cancer Council Australia, will lead the advisory board along with seven other experts in medical research and innovation, health policy, and commercialisation.
“Through their expert and independent advice to the government, the advisory will play a key role in delivering on the MRFF’s agenda to support our world-class researchers and reinforce our nation’s great research reputation,” Minister Ley will tell the Transnational Research Institute in Queensland.
The first contribution the government will make is $10 million for research grants in 2015-16, followed by further allocations totalling $53 million in 2016-17, $130 million in 2017-18 and $224 million in 2018-19.
“The funding will give our best and brightest Australian researchers the opportunity to find the health and medical discoveries that will make meaningful and practical improvements to people’s lives.”
Fellow advisory board appointees Peter Hoj, Doug Hilton, Professor Karen Reynolds, Deborah Rathjen, Yasser El-Ansary, Jennifer Williams and Anne Kelso will provide the overarching research strategy.
Areas that could receive funding include transformational field of genomics, new technologies that will ultimately transform healthcare delivery, clinical trials and registries to reduce waste and improve patient outcomes.
Suicide prevention research and primary health care research are also covered by the Fund.
Cuts to spending on pharmaceuticals, health assessments, dentistry, electronic record-keeping, stoma appliances and cutting and merging back-office functions, as previously reported in The Australian, will help bankroll the fund.

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