Health Research for Philanthropy Foundations and Public Organizations

Research for Philanthropy

Philanthropy Funds 40% of Health Research Globally

Research for philanthropy: Fully forty percent (40%) of the world’s health research is funded by publicly funded and philanthropic funding organizations [1]. Such organizations play a central role in the development of innovation and knowledge development in fields such as bioinformatics and bioethics, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and innovative gene therapies.  Some research is crucial in areas that are not sufficiently profitable or where investment and access to care are limited. One example is behavioral health and substance use disorder [2]. The involvement of public and philanthropic funding initiatives is essential in the development of new medical therapies and solutions to fight neglected diseases [1, 2].   More recently, public funding and philanthropic gifts are making a difference in the development of new antibiotics [3–5].

Transparency and Objective Research are Essential

Research for philanthropy should follow financial and ethical transparency in donations and use of funds for medical research, population health analysis, etc., to ensure that the money goes to effective campaigns.  Visibility into who foundations use to decide what gets funded (in other words, the priority-setting mechanisms and funding distribution mechanisms) can help funding organizations to choreograph their efforts.  This can prevent duplication of research and improve collaboration [2, 6–12].  Financial and ethical transparency enables independent evaluation of funding organization portfolios and efficacy [7, 13]. This is especially fundamental for public funding organizations.   Use of public funds for specific goals or grants often requires reporting and adherence to specific Standards.  For philanthropic foundations, accountabilities are less specific.  However, given the substantial impact of some of these funders on the global landscape for health research, it makes sense to evaluate similar Standards for foundations [14, 15].

A great deal of information now illuminates countries’ expenditures on health research [1, 16–20]. Yet there is little scrutiny of the funding patterns and mechanisms of individual funding organizations.  Correlating individual funding organizations’ expenditures on health research is at times constrained to one or several countries [7, 10, 21–26] or to a select group of diseases, conditions, or social issues [25, 27–29].  Our firm serves some of the top ten largest public and philanthropic funders of health research in the world, to report on what they fund, and on their mechanisms for distributing these funds (funding organizations’ priority setting mechanisms were beyond the scope of this study.

Nearly $47 Billion in Funds for Health Research from Philanthropic Funds

  • Of the fifty-five (55) significant health research funding organizations, the ten largest funded research for $37.1 billion, constituting 40% of all public and philanthropic health research spending globally.
  • According to current data from the U.S. NIH, its total program level (including grants, contracts, intramural research, etc.) was approximately $47–48.5 billion in FY 2025 (with ~$35.3 billion in extramural grants alone). This is already well above the entire original top-10 total from ~2013
  • The largest was the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), with grants of $26.1 billion.  Grants also help fund physician compensation at academic medical centers.
  • Second was the European Commission with $3.7 billion
  • Next, the United Kingdom Medical Research Council has $1.3 billion.
  • The largest philanthropic funder was the Wellcome Trust with grants totaling $909.1 million.
  • The chief fund for health research via US development assistance was USAID at $186.4 million.
  • The most noteworthy multilateral funder was the World Health Organization at $135.0 million.

Largest Philanthropic Funds

Based on 2024–2025 data, here are some of the largest, heavily invested, or most active foundations in healthcare research:
  • Novo Nordisk Foundation (Denmark): Oversees assets valued at approximately DKK 1,060 billion (~$142 billion–$167 billion USD as of 2024/2025).
  • Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (USA): Reported assets of $70–$77 billion USD. It is the largest private funder of global health initiatives.
  • Wellcome Trust (UK): Estimated at $42–$44 billion USD, consistently one of the world’s largest biomedical research funders.
  • Howard Hughes Medical Institute (USA): Assets of approximately $22–$27 billion USD.
  • The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust (USA): Assets around $8.3 billion USD.
  • Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (USA): Assets estimated at $9.5–$11.4 billion USD.
  • Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (USA): Assets valued at $11.4–$12.4 billion USD.

Growth in DAFs: 

  • Donor-Advised Funds (DAFs) are becoming significant health funders. In 2024, DAF assets reached $326 billion, growing 27.5%.

Our Research for Philanthropy Offerings

Health data is complex.  Our team of clinical, biomedical informatics, and bioethics experts can act as interpreters between complex data sets and knowledge that can be used to make better philanthropic decisions.

  • Data science
    • Clinical concepts related to the International Classification of Diseases version 10 (ICD-10)
    • Extract, transform, and load (“ETL”) of raw healthcare claim data for economic and population health research
    • Forensic review of electronic health records
    • Artificial intelligence reasoning based on clinical concepts
  • Economic viability studies:
    • Advise developers of intellectual property on monetization in the complex U.S. healthcare system, which is primarily driven by health insurance reimbursement, medical coding, medical billing, and supporting underlying clinical documentation
    • Review of prior art in patent and trade secret protection
    • Advise regarding coverage determinations for novel technology under existing insurance Standards and development of proposals for new coverage determinations and medical codes
    • Research, pharmacy, and therapeutics committees (“P&T”) and formularies – specialized knowledge
    • Gene therapy effectiveness and rapidly developing genetics coverage determinations by health plans
  • Population health research
  • Substance use disorders – impact on populations of controlled substances
  • Injury causation data
  • Research for specific medical specialties such as orthopedics, cardiology, pathology, laboratory testing, and medical devices

Examples of our work include research for publicly funded information services.

  • Hear our CEO, Michael F Arrigo’s, interview on National Public Radio and Kaiser Health News here
  • Prior projects include work with AMREF.  The African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF) is a non-governmental organization founded and based in Africa with 50 years of experience in health development. Today, it is one of the continent’s leading research organizations. It implements projects through country programs in Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Southern Sudan and South Africa; while training and consulting support are provided to 30 more countries. AMREF’s mission is to ensure that every African can enjoy the right to good health by helping to create vibrant networks of informed communities that work with empowered care providers in strong health systems.
  • Research for philanthropy custom studies based on specific requirements.

Citations to published papers

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