The Role of Private Investors in Spurring Research on Autoimmune Diseases
As of 2017, consumer expenditures on healthcare comprised a total of 63% of all healthcare expenses. This amounts to a total of $2 trillion spent on hospital care, clinic services, and retail prescription drugs. These services represent a form of repeated healthcare where patients have to continuously move in and out of hospitals for chronic conditions that haven’t been cured yet.
Compared to this, only $159 billion is spent on research and development to develop cures for these conditions. Clearly, the economic and financial burdens of healthcare have surpassed the amounts that are being invested back into the system which gives rise to a major cash inflow-outflow imbalance. As such, conditions like the Celiac disease — which affects nearly 3 million people in the United States — are left untreated because we haven’t developed cures for these, many of these conditions haven’t even been diagnosed yet.
This imbalance needs to be addressed if we are to make progress towards developing cures for the condition an eliminating these health burdens associated with chronic genetic conditions — an imbalance that only private investors can meet.
Why the Private Sector: New Impact Investing Opportunities on the Horizon
In the aftermath of the 2007 global recession, investment markets have fared brilliantly throughout the world. Globally renowned research firm McKinsey pointed out that asset values for all funds under management grew up to $5 trillion in 2017.
These huge volumes of investment point to lucrative opportunities that are definitely bringing in money to encourage interested parties to continue investing. It follows from this that investment companies, equity funds and venture capitalists are making a fair bit of profit from the exercise.
Considering the growth in the valuation of investment markets and the returns being made on these investments, it’s entirely possible that private investments meet the investment gaps in medical research. In terms of Corporate Social Responsibilities, this is an area that these companies and funds can look towards in an attempt to resolve global health concerns.
