however the roles of the public and private sectors in research funding are less clearly defined than they were before the biotechnology area and governments and their agencies now have a much more direct role in applied medical scientific research stevens et al recent studies have looked into the relevance and impact of public and private research investment families usa malinowski zycher and concluded that in general terms both public and private stakeholders play a significant complementary role in the delivery of innovative therapies these rewards materialize from innovations which are largely generated through fundamental research projects at universities and other public research institutions