Patient advocacy organizations (PAOs) play a key role in medical product development. Many PAOs raise money to fund medical product development activities – such as basic science research, preclinical research, and clinical trials - for their condition of focus, whereas others fund or develop resources such as biobanks or patient registries to support the research community. PAOs fund medical product development by providing financial support to academic and medical institutions and life sciences companies, or by conducting research in house. However, little is known about the PAOs that are engaged in funding these activities.
To assess PAOs’ engagement in funding medical product development, Mathematica conducted a study to learn about the types of medical product development activities that PAOs fund, the amount of funding they dedicate to these activities, and their approaches to funding such activities. The study findings highlight the extensive involvement of PAOs in advancing medical product development.