Bibliometric analysis to tell the story of Susan G. Komen’s research funding impact

Abstract Information: To achieve our vision of a world without breast cancer, Susan G. Komen supports research with potential to lead to better prevention, detection, and treatments for all breast cancers. While Komen has supported nearly $1.1 billion in breast cancer research, biomedical research requires numerous funding sources and multiple investigators working to advance the field and unlock novel treatments. Given Komen’s significant investment in research and investigators, it is important to patients, donors, and other partners to understand how investments in biomedical research translate into clinical impact, such as approval of new drugs for breast cancer treatment. Our goal is to tell the story of how Susan G. Komen’s funding impacted discovery and development of drugs approved in the past ten years to treat breast cancer. To evaluate our impact, we identified essential clinical trials that led to initial FDA approval of each drug. We then applied bibliometric analysis to citations from trial studies, working backwards to capture fundamental pre-clinical and basic research studies that identified the drug’s target and its functions in the context of breast cancer biology. We identified specific “touchpoints” for these essential studies including direct Komen funding for the published study and/or Komen support of key personnel. By adopting this approach, we can demonstrate the impact of Komen’s funded research across the full drug development timeline. We believe these methods can help funders develop more purposeful and compelling stories about their impact on clinical care by illustrating how funded research contributes to new treatments for human disease.

Relevance Statement: This proposal is relevant and important to the field of evaluation because it expands storytelling for translational research funder impacts beyond numbers of publications, publication impact factor, and other academic metrics, instead focusing on identification of specific, tangible impacts research funding has along the pipeline of breast cancer drug development from the laboratory to use in clinical treatment for the population impacted by breast cancer. We highlight how Susan G. Komen research funding investments supported essential studies in basic research, pre-clinical research, and clinical trials as well as the key personnel who conduct these studies that led to FDA approval for drugs used to treat breast cancer. This approach allows us to tell more purposeful and compelling stories about Komen’s true impact on clinical care by illustrating how funded research contributes to new treatments for human disease. This type of storytelling has value for patients, donors, and other partners by showing the real-world impacts on clinical advances in care that stem from Komen’s investments in breast cancer research and has value to evaluators seeking to tell the story of translational research funder impact for human disease in ways that resonate with the populations they serve and their benefactors. The proposal adds to knowledge in the evaluation field and reflects relevant standards of quality in evaluation methods by using bibliometric analysis to identify and highlight specific points of funder impact.