$54.5 Million for Type 1 Diabetes Research

The Liberal National Government has just announced that we will provide $54.4 million for type 1 diabetes research, which will give new hope and support to the more than 120,000 Australian children and adults, including many in Sturt, living with this condition.

This record funding will be provided through the Government’s landmark Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF), in which Government investment is increasing by over 1.9 billion over the forward estimates, ensuring more funding for genomics, rare cancers and diseases, and chronic conditions like diabetes.

Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) Australia will receive $25 million to advance its Type 1 Diabetes Clinical Research Network, and an additional $4.5 million in funding will be provided to JDRF Australia over three years to further assist with the strategic vision and national leadership of the research network.

An initial investment of $25 million will also be dedicated to broader diabetes research under the $125 million MRFF Targeted Translation Research Accelerator initiative, to help progress early stage health and medical research discoveries to reach proof-of-concept and progress to clinical trials. Projects will be funded following an open and competitive grant round.

The Minister for Health, Greg Hunt has said that the Government is aware of the significant impact that diabetes has on people and their families and is committed to working towards the broad prevention of the disease in the Australian community.

Type 1 diabetes is a life-long auto-immune disease, and is one of the most common chronic diseases in children, but can be diagnosed at any age. There is currently no cure for type 1 diabetes and no proven approach to prevent this disease from occurring.

This research investment will help to increase the excellence and impact of this area of research in Australia by further supporting our best and brightest researchers to ultimately find a cure for diabetes.

It is our Government’s strong economic management that means we can make sure more patients have access to more life-saving medicines, treatments and medical research that will save lives.

The Coalition Government’s strategic and rational economic decisions also ensure that Australia’s burgeoning science, technology and health sectors can continue to steadily expand and create more local jobs.