At CCLG, we think a lot about money. As a charity, we don’t receive any money direct from the government and we must carefully plan and balance how to spend our money so it will help children with cancer in the best way possible. Research is expensive, but different types of research can cost different amounts to achieve different goals. Let’s take a look at what the costs are in research and why we fund it.
Big cost differences between projects
The type of research project determines how much money is needed. For example, a research study that reviews all of the existing research to find evidence of the best treatments available for relapsed neuroblastoma, might only need funding for the costs of staff time and access to journal articles. However, a clinical trial for a new treatment for relapsed neuroblastoma would need significant funding to support all aspects of running a trial such as analysis, staff and patient involvement.
Another consideration is what stage the project is at. The Little Princess Trust has recently asked for applications to their ‘New Ideas Grant’. They are hoping to fund the very first stages of unusual research proposals, giving researchers a financial means of finding the evidence they need to enable them to apply for funding for a full project. This is because researchers might struggle to find funding for their more ‘out there’ ideas, but sometimes thinking outside of the box is exactly what is needed to discover important scientific breakthroughs. We’re expecting applications of up to £50,000 - which is quite low for a research project.
Funding clinical trials
Clinical trials can cost millions of pounds, but it depends on the type of trial and the number of people involved. They can be broken down into four stages. Stages 1and 2 are testing how safe and effective the treatment is in small groups of patients, Stage 3 uses a bigger group of patients and aims to get approval for the treatment to be used for all patients. Stage 4 monitors patients while on the treatment to make sure there are no long-term side effects or problems.
One of our projects is a Stage 2 clinical trial testing a new medicine to treat children with immune system over-activation conditions and relapsed or refractory cancers is due to finish this month. This was quite a small trial, as the condition the medicine was being tested on is very rare, but it cost nearly £200,000 and lasted three years. The longer a trial takes, the more patients are involved, or the more complicated the treatment being tested is – these can all mean the project costs a lot more.
Paying for expert knowledge
In 2022, around 60% of funding granted to new projects was allocated to paying the salaries of specialist staff working on that research. Staff might include research fellows, expert lab technicians, postdoctoral researchers, scientific officers and admin staff.
Dr Ruman Rahman's full research team.
Whilst some researchers are paid by their organisations, like university lecturers, most of the people working on a research project are only contracted for the duration of the project. When the project ends, they move onto a different project with a new contract. Often, lead researchers work hard to keep their team together – it takes a lot of time and money to train a person in the techniques a lab uses. Keeping early career scientists in the field is a huge goal for many lead researchers, and they will even list it in reports as an accomplishment that a junior researcher has chosen to stay in the childhood cancer research field.
Where does the rest go?
The next biggest spend is on ‘consumables’. In research, this is a general term that covers most of the resources a researcher might use day to day such as sterile containers, chemicals, and paying for time using specialist microscopes and machines.
Dr Anand Manoharan pipetting in the lab, showing the many boxes of consumables needed for research.
The rest of the project’s budget might go towards buying new equipment, like pipettes and precision weighing scales, travel to conferences for researchers to share their findings with other experts, or supporting patients and parents to take part in the research.
The equipment researchers use, such as pipettes that are accurate to a microlitre (one millionth of a litre), are very expensive. As you might have guessed from the previous sentence, they are expensive because they are so detailed and must be accurate every single time they are used. For example, if you are mixing up one dose of a liquid medicine, you need to be sure there is the correct and safe amount of the chemotherapy agent within the liquid. Small variations in the amount could have a huge effect on your research – maybe making you think that ‘lower’ doses are effective when, in reality, your inaccurate equipment meant the amount of agent in the liquid was a lot higher than intended.
A rack of pipettes, which draw up different volumes.
So, why do we fund it?
As you can see, there is no easy answer to the question of how much research costs. As for the question of why we fund it, there are many easy answers, depending on who you ask. Here’s what some of the CCLG team said:
Because every family wants to know why this outrage happened and what we can do to stop it happening again, and when it has happened how best to manage the consequences.Jeanette Hawkins, Chief Nurse
There are still huge improvements that can be made in the lives of children with cancer. By funding crucial research, we can enable the detection of cancer early and can avoid delays in care to ensure children live longer, healthier, and happier lives.Georgina Payne, Graphic Designer
Because there is so much we don't know about childhood cancer - there's a lot of work left to do before every child has access to a safe and effective treatment for their specific cancer. We want to be part of making that change.Ellie Ellicott, Research Communications Executive
Childhood cancer is devastating, at diagnosis, during treatment and way beyond. We need to do better to make sure more children survive and thrive.Naomi Shefford-Thomas, Health Information Officer
Because helping children with cancer is something that really matters. Childhood cancer is devastating, and through research we ultimately want to get to a point where we can prevent children developing cancer. But for now, the research is focusing on developing more effective treatments so more children are cured, and making the treatments kinder, so there are fewer side effects.Sarah Evans, Head of Research
It all comes down to this – we believe children deserve better. They should have an entire lifetime in front of them, free from cancer, cancer treatments, and the long-term effects of having had cancer. Unlike other charities, we fund research into all cancer types, even the rarest. In partnership with The Little Princess Trust and other children’s cancer charities, we have funded over £21 million pounds of research and we don’t plan to stop until there is a brighter future for all children with cancer.
Read our research strategy to learn more about how we fund research, and please consider donating to support our work.
Ellie Ellicott is CCLG’s Research Communication Executive.
She is using her lifelong fascination with science to share the world of childhood cancer research with CCLG’s fantastic supporters. You can find Ellie on X: @EllieW_CCLG
