New source of funding, crowdfunding, for medical research

There are more than 350 million people worldwide that are suffering from more than 7,000 different diseases that the mainstream medicine hasn’t paid attention or devoted funds to find a cure. A new source of funding known as crowdfunding is helping the medical community to raise needed funds to conduct research on many diseases that mainstream funding is not available.

Crowdfunding, also known as crowd financing, crowd sourcing or hyper funding, is a collective effort by many individuals who collectively fund many projects including medical research to find a cure for many diseases through the internet. This method of funding is so popular that the U.S. government’s JOBS Act not only recognizes the value of the funding mechanism but also requires the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to set guidelines to improve the new pool of resources.

In 2007, a whopping 62 percent of bankruptcy filings indicated medical expenses as the reason for filings. Mainstream funding sources are looking at dollars and are not keen in investing in finding cures for diseases that affect smaller group of people. Crowdfunding is a valuable resource for those who are looking to find solutions for those destructive diseases.