The Cancer Money Trail: Where Does the Cancer Research Money Come From?
Before we ask where the money goes, we need to know where it comes from.
Part 1 established why cancer cannot be reduced to one disease or one research problem. Part 2 turns to the financial system behind the science: who funds research, what the major funding streams look like, and why no single global figure can safely be described as “the amount spent on cancer research.”
The first problem: what counts as cancer research funding?
Research money can enter the system through government grants, government contracts, charitable awards, university programmes, foundations, international agencies, private philanthropy and commercial research and development. Some datasets record the value of an award when it is made; others track spending or commitments over a different period.
That means the first rule of this investigation is simple: numbers must keep their definitions. A public-and-philanthropic grants dataset cannot suddenly be presented as the entire global research economy simply because it is the largest dataset we have found.
The $51.4 billion dataset
A major global analysis identified 107,955 cancer research awards made between 2016 and 2023, with a combined value of $51.4 billion. The awards came from public and philanthropic funders and were linked to more than 431,000 publications.
This is a very large dataset, but it is not a complete measure of global cancer R&D. Commercial research is not fully captured, and the researchers themselves distinguish the public and philanthropic dataset from the wider research economy.
The United States is the dominant source in that dataset
The United States accounted for about $29.3 billion, or 57.2%, of the identified funding. The National Institutes of Health accounted for about $21.9 billion, or 42.6% of the full dataset.
Those figures should not be interpreted as meaning the United States funds 57.2% of every dollar ever spent on cancer research. They describe the defined public and philanthropic awards captured by the study during 2016–2023.
What the NCI spends outside its own laboratories
The National Cancer Institute provides a useful close-up view of how a major national cancer research system distributes money. In fiscal year 2025, NCI obligations for its extramural programme totalled approximately $5.46 billion.
About 86.3% of that extramural total was grants and 13.7% contracts. Research Project Grants accounted for about $3.415 billion. Cancer Centers, Specialized Centers and SPOREs accounted for about $607 million. Contracts included roughly $719 million in research and development contracts and other contract categories.
NCI’s total FY2025 obligations, including intramural and other funding, were about $7.221 billion in the NCI budget fact book. These are U.S. government figures for one agency and one fiscal year, not a global total.
Why grants and contracts are different
A grant generally supports investigator-led research under an approved programme of work. A contract can be used when the government needs specified work, services or deliverables. Treating both as if they were identical spending mechanisms can hide important differences in how public research is commissioned and managed.
Charities and philanthropic funders
Governments are only one part of the funding system. Cancer Research UK, for example, reported spending £403 million on new and ongoing research in its 2024/25 reporting year and said it remained on track to exceed a £1.5 billion research commitment over the five-year period 2021/22 to 2025/26.
International research agencies also combine funding sources. IARC’s regular budget for 2024–2025 was approved at €48.68 million. IARC reported total expenses of €51.9 million in 2025, with 50.8% charged to its Regular Budget, 41.3% to voluntary contributions and 7.9% to other funds.
International awards are only part of the picture
NCI’s FY2025 international awards totalled about $22.5 million across 33 awards. Canada received about $9.0 million, France $3.5 million, Australia $3.1 million, the UK $2.7 million and Germany $1.25 million.
These numbers should not be confused with the full amount of cancer research undertaken internationally with U.S. participation. An award table records particular awards, not every collaboration, downstream spending decision or publication.
The research portfolio is larger than drug development
The global 2016–2023 study found that about $39.0 billion, or 76%, of the identified investment, was directed to preclinical science. Clinical trials received about $3.7 billion, or 7.3%. The same analysis found smaller shares for surgery and radiotherapy research.
There is no automatic conclusion that this distribution is wrong. Basic and preclinical research can create the knowledge needed for future treatments. But the numbers do raise a legitimate policy question: does the funding system provide enough support for the expensive stages between a laboratory discovery and routine patient care?
The geography problem
The same global dataset found that high-income countries contributed about $50.0 billion, or 97% of the identified funding. Low-income countries received only about $8.4 million, less than 0.1% of the total.
That disparity matters because research capacity itself requires money. A country without laboratories, cancer registries, trial infrastructure, specialist staff and reliable data may find it difficult to compete for the very funding needed to build those capabilities.
What we know — and what we do not
- Public and philanthropic cancer research funding is substantial.
- The United States is the largest contributor in the 2016–2023 dataset.
- Commercial R&D is not captured completely by that $51.4 billion figure.
- NCI is one major public funder, not the entire U.S. cancer research system.
- Funding is heavily concentrated in high-income countries.
- A large share of identified investment supports preclinical science.
The next question is geographical: if cancer is a global disease, which countries are actually contributing to the research system, and which countries are largely absent from it?
Both sides. One record. Evidence before conclusions. Primary sources are prioritised. Facts, estimates and uncertainty are distinguished, and figures are not combined when their definitions, periods or coverage are materially different.