Banner Health pursues high-risk, long-term prevention studies for improved health care

As federal research grants decline and private investors chase immediate profits, long-term medical prevention is losing its funding. According to Banner Health, their organization bridges this dangerous gap by using its nonprofit structure to back high-risk, decades-long studies that corporate markets ignore.

Dr. Corey Casper, Banner Research Senior Vice President and Chief Research Officer, joined “Arizona Horizon” to discuss the ways Banner Health says they improve immediate patient outcomes while laying the groundwork for future cures.

“[Biomedical research] takes incredible resources and has always taken a number of different partners to actually get definitive studies done,” Casper said. “The nonprofit sector is assuming more and more responsibility for researching and advancing health. Advances that, perhaps coperate America, are not interested in advancing.”

Backed by an $80.5 million research enterprise and 400 specialists, Casper explained they keep critical science moving forward. He added this model is already transforming care from Arizona to the global stage as Banner currently manages 1,300 active studies, successfully pushing multiple cancer, heart and Alzheimer’s therapies toward FDA approval.

Even though the nonprofit sectors are working to continue studies and research, other sectors are still critical for the success of medical advancement. For example, the corporate sector has the resources to make drugs of high quality, high quantity and have the ability to make they available to a large population.

While declining federal funding has made it more difficult to support research, Casper said institutions like Banner have found ways to adapt without relying solely on government dollars.

“What we’ve done at Banner, and what many nonprofit research institutions have done are to try to shore up their own infrastructures to make sure that we can conduct these studies even in lapses or ebbs of federal funding,” Casper said

According to Casper, having nonprofit healthcare delivery systems in Arizona, to ask and answer questions, will continue to improve the health of people in Arizona even without extra funding.