Bridging Financial Challenges in Young Biobanks—Funding Strategies from the Central Biobank Regensburg

Introduction

Biobanks make substantial contributions to research with their centralized, quality-assured biospecimen collections. ¹ Financial sustainability is crucial to maintain these services. Although institutional funding is the main source for many biobanks, it frequently falls short of covering all expenses, particularly as a biobank matures.^2,3 This is especially true for biobanks, which are <5 years old, are typically supported by initial investments, but face significant challenges as they transition from young to established biobanks. However, this transition phase is crucial to expand sample collection, establish workflows, and install necessary hardware. Biobanks that are in the transition phase from young to established biobanks face challenges due to limited financial resources, often barely covering maintenance costs of biobank operations and hindering them in expanding their staff, advancing their services, and, hence, establishing a stable and economical operation. Unlike established biobanks, they do not yet store a broad spectrum of biospecimens, making these biobanks unable to generate economic financing mechanisms such as user fees or research-based funding.^2,4 Therefore, careful evaluation of outputs and operating costs plays a critical role in enhancing sustainable and cost-efficient biobanks.^5,6 The Central Biobank Regensburg (ZBR) was founded in 2017 to support the Comprehensive Cancer Center Oberpfalz (CCCO). The ZBR is a patient-centered biobank that primarily stores liquid and tissue samples from a variety of diseases, such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and infections. The biobank started with three employees, a nitrogen-based storage facility, laboratory equipment, and existing facilities. The startup was funded by the Medical Faculty of the University of Regensburg. The initial lack of infrastructure as well as the limited specimen numbers excludes many young biobanks, such as the ZBR, from participating in network funding rounds. ¹

This brief report aims to describe different strategies of the ZBR to successfully tackle these economic challenges, support sustainability, and offer interesting perspectives for other expanding biobanks also facing the transition from the young phase into more mature stages of development.

Funding Strategies

To address this funding challenge, the ZBR pursued several approaches, which are summarized in Figure 1, focusing on the establishment of interregional collaboration and partnerships between industry and academia. Various key performance indicators (KPIs), including staff, third-party funding, sample number, projects, academic thesis, congress contributions, publications, and prizes, have been identified to illustrate ZBR’s transition from a young biobank to a sustainable one (Fig. 2).

FIG. 1.

Alternative financial approaches for midterm sustainability of ZBR as an example for a young biobank.

FIG. 2.

ZBR’s evolution from 2019 to 2022. Several key performance indicators have been identified to illustrate the ZBR’s performance and the transition from a young biobank to a sustainable one. The legend at the bottom right can be applied for the categories “Projects” to “Prizes” and includes color coding for the respective time periods (dark blue for 2019/2020, blue for 2021, light blue for 2022). Due to initial challenges in establishing concrete business routines, including key performance indicators, the years 2019 and 2020 were analyzed together. Following the successful introduction of the key performance indicators, the biobank performance was analyzed annually.

Establishing the Cross-Border network BRoTHER

Facing these economic challenges, the ZBR initiated the BRoTHER (Biobank Research on Telemedical Approaches for Human Biobanks in a European Region) network, uniquely combining two established with two emerging biobanks. This cross-border collaboration consists of the tissue bank of the Technical University of Munich (TUM), the biobank of the Masaryk Memorial Cancer Institute Brno, the biobank of the Medical Faculty Pilsen, and the ZBR. ⁷ Funded by the Bavarian Czech Academic Agency (BTHA) for 3 years, these biobanks exchanged experiences and collaborated on projects focusing on digitalization, dissemination, education, and biospecimen research—with less emphasis on sample exchange or joint studies. ⁸ The biobanks prioritized knowledge exchange and collaborated on common challenges faced by small biobanks. The bottom-up biobank project builtup the base for subsequent years of various projects with third-party funding, infrastructure, and staff. For instance, the funding of BRoTHER included the establishment of an online conference system and hardware components for digital image analyses and video conferences, which could be used after the transition phase for video conferences in several biobanking study consortiums. The expansion of our infrastructure, including the conference system, has significantly enhanced our services for biobank users and increased our network activities. Digital meetings have facilitated improved communication with our partners, enabling us to plan, organize, and implement new projects more effectively. This has strengthened the sustainability of our biobank, attracted third-party funding, and enabled further infrastructural development. Over the years, this has enabled the initiation of 16 third-party-funded projects (Fig. 2).

Another crucial pillar of the network was biobank education. Recognizing the lack of biobanking courses for students and scientists, the annual BRoTHER Summer School was established. The participants learned about the basics of biobanking, quality aspects, and Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues (ELSI) during special lectures. Furthermore, hands-on training addressed several aspects of biospecimen handling. The BTHA funding of the BRoTHER network and the BRoTHER Summer School enabled the acquisition of technical equipment and the organization of dissemination events. Additionally, funds for personnel and travel expenses were included. The main idea was to make the concept of a biobank tangible for students and young researchers. By developing an awareness of how a biobank can be used, future collaborations and more sustainable projects can emerge. The effectiveness of this strategy and the interest of students in the biobank concept are underlined by the assignment of a total of 48 academic theses related to the biobank between 2019 and 2022 (Fig. 2).

Implementation of the educational initiative eduBRoTHER

One important lesson we learned from the BRoTHER collaboration is the critical importance of functional networks for operating a sustainable biobank. Since the summer school participant’s feedback highlighted the lack of educational resources covering biobanking and precision medicine—especially for medical students, the ZBR and Biobank Pilsen initiated the program “Biobanking and Personalized Medicine for Students (eduBRoTHER)”. ⁹ This course was successfully integrated into the official medical, medical informatics, and molecular medicine curricula in the faculties of Regensburg and Pilsen. The course was funded by the European Union’s Interreg program (Ziel ETZ 2014–2020), covering personnel, dissemination, technical equipment, and travel expenses, benefiting the biobanks. ⁸ Furthermore, short projects for academic collaborations funded by the BTHA supported these efforts, e.g., the creation of image films or the conceptualization of a social media strategy. This dissemination strategy was anticipated to enhance the ZBR’s profile and attract greater attention from researchers, staff, patients, and visitors. This increased visibility was then expected to foster sustainable collaborations and elevate the willingness to donate tissue. Indeed, Figure 2 shows a positive trend in the number of stored samples and collaborative projects.

Moreover, the establishment of eduBRoTHER also included hardware components in tissue processing as educational skills during the project and afterwards for tissue processing for biobanking projects. In this context, consumables for sample processing and storing were used during the eduBRoTHER project in our education workshops and afterwards for biobank collections.

Realization of the digital imaging—project “image hub”

Besides these network projects, the ZBR prioritized digitalization. Within the project Image Hub, the ZBR worked on integrating digital images from sample slides into the data integration system of the biobank. Funds from the COVID-19 research fund of the University Hospital Regensburg were used to realize this project with a specific focus on procuring the biobank’s digital infrastructure. The ZBR collaborated with industrial and academic partners to enhance the synergy between pathology routine, biobanking, information technology, and image analysis, thus shaping its distinctive identity and promoting its evolution.

Fostering synergy between academia and industry in PathoScan

Together with the TUM, the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS and industry partners PreciPoint GmbH (Garching, Germany) and HTI Automation (Ebersberg, Germany), the project PathoScan was initiated and funded by the Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs, Regional Development and Energy. In this project, the partners worked on the automatic digitization of pathological slides and the realization of remote microscopy. Funding included personnel expenses and material resources.

The funding in the digital project image hub and PathoScan enabled the development of an interactive whole slide imaging platform connected to the biobank laboratory information system to identify relevant biobank specimens during future biobank specimen collection. Both projects expanded the ZBR’s expertise, developing prototypes and models for digitalized biobanking workflows. Overall, these collaborations have led to six industry-sponsored projects and several scientific publications. Special attention was given to presenting the results of our projects at conferences, primarily to increase our visibility and engage in exchange with various stakeholders (Fig. 2).

Discussion

The example of the ZBR clearly demonstrates that alternative funding strategies are supportive to overcome initial financial challenges and enhance a biobank’s sustainability. In this context, biobank-related projects covering education and technical issues give the opportunity to develop specific expertise. In addition, these distinctive areas of expertise help to increase the visibility within the professional community.

However, this approach faces challenges given the project’s time limitation. This issue especially affects the personnel situation, leading to a relatively small number of staff. Therefore, the ZBR concept serves as a medium-term sustainability strategy. The implemented projects enabled biobank growth, fostering expertise and robust academic and industry partnerships. In the long-term, university or faculty support is needed to sustain the expanding biobank, ensuring personnel costs and job security unrelated to project durations to maintain consistency in the biobank’s operations.

During the initial phase, no detailed business plan and no thorough cost recovery plan were available. Regarding a sustainability plan, there was only the commitment that the medical faculty, the university, and the university clinic should provide financial support without providing any details. First in 2019, 2 years after the biobank was founded, structured documentation of income, expenditure, number of samples, and the preparation of annual reports was implemented using specific KPIs, which are illustrated in Figure 2. These KPIs were incorporated into the annual presentations within the framework of the CCCO to illustrate the status and progress of the ZBR. Furthermore, the KPIs were used in research proposals to highlight the biobank’s successful work and thereby increase output. Ultimately, a positive development of the KPIs became a prerequisite for receiving continued faculty support.

Even if the example of the financial development of the ZBR clearly demonstrated that third-party funding sources could significantly support the development of the biobank, it should be taken into account that some of these funding sources, such as the BRoTHER network, were unique for the region. Therefore, the example of the ZBR clearly demonstrates that it is absolutely necessary in the planning phase of a biobank to provide a comprehensive cost recovery strategy, and a detailed sustainability plan adapted to the local requirements.

Contrary to other biobank education programs such as the Canadian Tissue Repository Network education platform (“Essentials of Biobanking,” offered in both English and French) and the German Biobank Alliance eDX course (offered in German language), the eduBRoTHER program was specifically designed not only to generate income to support the emerging biobank but also to enhance its visibility. However, what makes eduBRoTHER unique is its focus on targeting local medical students, trainees, and allied disciplines. This local focus not only raises the profile of the ZBR within its institutions but also fosters a strong connection with its researchers, encouraging the use of biobank services and reinforcing the biobank’s value to the research community.^10,11 Therefore, the program is not intended to compete with already established biobank education programs.

The BRoTHER network’s measures allowed biobanks to grow without the financial pressure of collecting and distributing samples. These projects successfully upgraded the biobank’s resources and staff, all while running concurrently with its daily operations.

In summary, the absence of financial sustainability from the operating institution weakens the biobank, jeopardizing its crucial role in medical research. Therefore, expanding biobanks are challenged to find creative strategies and establish a robust business plan that secure financial sustainability.