Critical Financial Challenges for Biobanking: Report of a National Cancer Institute Study

Abstract

Background: Researchers and other key stakeholders in biobanking often do not have a thorough understanding of the true costs and challenges associated with initiating, running, and maintaining a biobank. The National Cancer Institute's Biorepositories and Biospecimen Research Branch (BBRB) commissioned the Biobanking Financial Sustainability survey to better understand the challenges that biobanks face in supporting ongoing operations. A series of interviews with biobanking managers and an international focus group session informed the content of the survey.

Methods: The design of the survey included five main sections, each containing questions related to primary topics as follows: general demographics, operations, funding sources, costs, and financial challenges. While the survey focused on financial issues and challenges, it also explored staffing and strategic planning as these issues relate to the sustainability of operations and financial support. U.S. and international biobanks were included in the survey.

Results: Biobanks in general are dependent on public funding and most biobanks do not have formal plans for the long-term stewardship of their collections. Respondents are working at a critical level of personnel and are not in a position to further reduce staffing. Smaller biobanks in particular need assistance in defining reasonable cost recovery user fees for biospecimens and related services.

Conclusions: The survey results highlight several issues that are important for long-term biobank sustainability. It is critical to prepare for such issues as effective biobanking practices have increasingly been recognized as a key component for the advancement of precision medicine.

Keywords: biobank; biobanking; biobanking economics; economics; financial sustainability; repositories.

FIG. 1.

Top five challenges. (A) Distribution by challenge and biobank size. When viewing the top five critical challenges in light of the size of the biobank, most of the larger biobanks were concerned with “sustaining current growth” and “acquiring new specimens” (A). None of the largest biobanks considered “keeping pace with quality standards” as a high-priority challenge. The greatest number of medium-sized biobanks was most concerned with “securing sustainable funding” and “replacing declining funding sources”. Small biobanks were relatively uniform in their selection of the five top challenges. Some biobanks did not report the information required to determine the size of the biobank and therefore were not included. (B) The top five challenges according to biobank age. The most frequently chosen challenges for biobanks that have been in operation, the longest (>5 years) were “securing sustainable funding” and “replacing funding sources”. The main challenges for biobanks that have been in operation for less than 3 years were “sustaining current growth” and “acquiring new specimens.” In the 3–5-year range, and as the biobank continues to be in operation for a longer period, sustainable funding and replacing existing funding becomes a much more critical challenge. Color images are available online.

FIG. 2.

Ranked challenges. (A) Distribution by ranked challenge. There was a general agreement that funding and expanding biospecimen collections (left most four bars) are medium- or high-priority challenges for most respondents, while issues such as labor attrition, consents, and technology, (right most bars) are primarily viewed as medium or low priority. Only one challenge listed, managing changing consent processes, was rated with a low priority by more than half the respondents. (B) Large biobanks identified relatively few challenges, citing only 6 of the 14 possible challenges as important, which may be due, in part, to the relatively small number of large biobanks among the respondents. Biobanks of all sizes frequently cite growth and funding as challenges. Small biobanks cited three challenges much more frequently than medium and large biobanks. These three challenges include establishing competitive charges for specimens, charging for services, and keeping pace with new technology. Of these, the challenge indicated as most critical for small biobanks was to establish a competitive charge structure for specimen-related services. While this challenge is important to small biobanks, it is not one of the top five ranked challenges for all biobanks. Color images are available online.

FIG. 3.

Overall personnel distribution. The typical staffing profile for biobanks that reported personnel distributions is shown. The majority of staff members are full-time or part-time technical employees. Managers, administrative staff, and IT support combined account for only 25% of overall staffing. Two biobanks reported that they rely entirely on full-time staffing. Color images are available online.

FIG. 4.

Most biobanks (15 respondents) rely on an average of 23% of their budget to be funded from their host enterprise. Biobanking and clinical research grants were reported as similarly common sources of funding, which also contribute to a large portion of the budget for many biobanks. A large number of biobanks reported that they generate funding by providing biobanking services for a fee. While the average indicated that only 5% of the budget comes from biobanking-related services, a small subset of biobanks (5) reported that a much larger portion of their budgets come from such services, ranging from 17% to as much as 39%. Likewise, a few biobanks (3) reported that a larger percentage of their overall budget comes from contract-related specimen collection services, ranging from 25% to 50%. Finally, a small number of biobanks (4) reported that they generate a significant portion, 10%, of their budget from specimen-based information. The blue bars reflect the number of biobanks who report that a portion of their funding comes from the given source. The red bars reflect the average portion of a biobank's budget that comes from that source. Color images are available online.

FIG. 5.

Comparison of budget vs. cost by length in operation. The reported operational costs were compared to the reported operational budgets, categorized by biobank age. The blue bars reflect the average budget, while the red bars reflect the average operational costs. Color images are available online.

FIG. 6.

Respondent votes for additional products and resources. The products and resources shown had received the most “votes” by respondents. The blue bars indicate items that respondents found would currently be of most urgent need, while the green bars identify items that would currently be most useful in their current stage of operation. Color images are available online.