top
Today, we and partners are proud to release the annual HIV Prevention Research and Development Investments Report, with important findings for our collective advocacy. The report reveals a growing mismatch between the current promise of HIV prevention R&D, and continuing declines in the funding available. This decline affects both funding for research on new interventions and funding to expand access to existing prevention tools. The new report is based on outreach to 215 funders of HIV prevention R&D in the public, philanthropic and commercial sectors and includes 2020 funding data.
The latest data shows funding for HIV prevention R&D dropped by US$54 million (4.4 percent) in 2020. This second consecutive annual decrease is part of an eight-year trend of flat or declining funding for HIV prevention R&D.
The report also finds that financial support for HIV prevention R&D is almost entirely dependent on public sector funders, notably from the United States, and on one key United States-based philanthropic funder, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Commercial sector funding, already extremely low, dropped again in this year’s survey.
“These concerning trends in funding come at a promising but very demanding moment in efforts to control the pandemic,” said Mitchell Warren, executive director of AVAC, which coordinates the Resource Working Group with the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). “Funding is declining just as the field confronts a new generation of opportunities and challenges.”
This high stakes environment includes: new products readying for introduction, such as injectable cabotegravir for PrEP and the Dapivirine Vaginal Ring; international support for ambitious new global targets for ending the epidemic; initial proof of concept of antibody-based prevention; and urgently needed new thinking for HIV vaccine development as recent trials have experienced setbacks and new technologies such as mRNA succeed against COVID-19.
Key findings from the report include:
HIV prevention R&D is highly overdependent on a few key funders, and much of the world is not contributing at the levels seen in prior years:
- HIV prevention R&D funding relies almost exclusively on the public sector, particularly the US public sector. The trend toward an overdependence on a small number of large investors, which the Working Group has surfaced and cautioned against in the past, intensified further in 2020.
- Globally, the public sector accounts for 86 percent of prevention R&D funding, with 92 percent of that coming from the US public sector.
- European public sector investments represent only 7 percent of the global total. While European public sector investment increased by 57 percent in 2020, it is still barely half of the US$124 million the European public sector contributed in 2009.
- The entire rest of the world accounted for only US$14 million, or just 1 percent of total public sector funding.
- Philanthropic funding, consisting almost exclusively of funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, declined 20 percent in 2020 to US$127 million or 12 percent of the total global investment.
- Reported commercial sector support for HIV prevention R&D, already the lowest segment of investment, fell by 55 percent to US$31 million, or just 3 percent of the total, in 2020. While total commercial investment may be underreported, trends over time from the data collected show commercial sector investments is, by far, the smallest piece of the funding pie for HIV prevention R&D.
Funding dropped in 2020 across a number of key segments, including:
Preventive vaccine R&D: With two large-scale HIV vaccine trials underway, and dozens of new approaches under investigation, funding for preventive HIV vaccine R&D decreased by 5.5 percent or US$46 million in 2020 to US$802 million. While different European countries have increased or decreased their investments, overall European public sector investment in HIV vaccine R&D decreased 31 percent in 2020, to US$48 million.
R&D for PrEP, including pills, implants, injections: While uptake of oral PrEP grew substantially in 2020, and multiple recent research studies have demonstrated the potential impact of a range of PrEP options including long-acting injections, pills and implants, global investment in PrEP R&D declined 2 percent in 2020 to US$107 million. While US public sector donors increased funding for PrEP R&D by 5 percent, and commercial sector investment increased by 21 percent to US$24 million, neither was enough to overcome a 42 percent decline in funding from the philanthropic sector.
Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision (VMMC): As a number of studies affirmed the efficacy of VMMC over a decade ago, funding in the field is focused on implementation science, behavioral studies and advocacy and policy, each of which is vital to extending the reach and impact of this highly effective prevention tool. Yet investment in VMMC decreased by 37 percent to just US$6 million in 2020, almost all of which came from a single donor, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Preventing vertical transmission: Prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) remains a key prevention priority, but funding for PMTCT R&D decreased by 29 percent in 2020, from US$35 million to US$25 million. The decline is attributed to the loss of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation from the list of PMTCT R&D funders, and to decreases in funding from public donors. US public sector funding for PMTCT R&D fell 22 percent to US$22 million in 2020. European funding also fell more than 60 percent, from US$3.4 million in 2019 to US$1.3 million in 2020.
Only two areas of prevention R&D funding showed small increases in funding, including:
Treatment as Prevention (TasP): Long neglected in HIV prevention investment, funding for treatment as prevention (TasP) R&D increased from $1.7million to US$9 million in 2020. The increase came from philanthropy, notably the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (US$5 million) and the Wellcome Trust (US$1 million).
While TasP R&D funding is small overall, this increase is a hopeful sign that TasP may once again receive its appropriate focus as priority for HIV prevention research.
Microbicides: After multiple years of decline, investment in microbicide R&D registered a very small increase (0.4 percent or US$0.6 million) to US$145 million in 2020. Concerningly, there is even less diversity in microbicide funding than in HIV prevention R&D overall, with the public sector providing 99 percent of microbicide R&D resources.
While this tiny increase is a hopeful sign, it does not match the scope of the promise of microbicides. One key product, the Dapivirine Vaginal Ring, is now recommended by the WHO as an additional HIV prevention option. In addition, a range of promising microbicide strategies are under investigation. One, a 90-day dual-purpose vaginal ring designed to confer both contraceptive and HIV protection, was found to be effective in early testing.
This is the 16th annual report from the Resource Tracking for HIV Prevention Research & Development Working Group. Go to HIVResourceTracking.org to explore the key findings, funding trends, and previous reports in depth and follow the conversation on Twitter #HIVResearchFunding.