Kansas University is seeking a commitment from the state for $5 million annually to help develop new pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines.

“This is clearly an area where we have the opportunity to compete on an international and national level and improve the human condition,” said Joe Heppert, associate vice chancellor in KU’s Office of Research.

But the request comes at a time when both federal research dollars and state revenues are in tight supply.

The bite on federal funds comes via the ongoing sequester, and state revenue problems are rolling in on recent state income tax cuts.

“We all understand that it’s a tough economic climate,” Heppert said. “We also understand that it’s critically important to think about the economic and technological future of our state,” he said.

Jennifer Poulakidas, who is vice president for congressional and governmental affairs for the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, said that the sequester federal budget cuts have reduced research dollars in the National Institutes of Health to 2003 levels.

“This is definitely a national problem,” Poulakidas said. “It’s pretty grim. Sequester is sadly still with us,” she said.

KU is proposing the establishment of a Drug and Discovery Vaccines Institute that would focus on the prevention and treatment of diseases.

Of the $5 million request, half would go toward what will be called the Translational Chemical Biology Institute, and half would go toward the Kansas Vaccine Institute.

The TCBI would focus on the creation of drugs to treat emerging and rare diseases and the commercialization of those discoveries.

KVI researchers would work on early stage vaccine discoveries for preventing human and animal diseases. In this area, KU would partner with Kansas State University, Wichita State University and the private sector. Officials envision joint research projects with the planned National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility in Manhattan and other research facilities.

The proposal will benefit the Kansas economy by encouraging pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to start up or locate here, officials say.

In its request, which will be first scrutinized by the Kansas Board of Regents later this month, KU is leading with one of its strengths: the School of Pharmacy’s history of research in many diseases and No. 2 ranking in drawing down funding from the National Institutes of Health. If the regents agrees to submit the budget proposal, the funding item could be debated during the 2015 legislative session, which starts in January.

While the scramble for research dollars becomes more intense, the need for research has increased, Heppert argues.

Some infectious diseases are becoming more resistant to treatment and will require new drugs, while the ability for diseases to spread quickly has increased as more people and goods travel globally, Heppert argues.

“We really can’t think about epidemics that occur overseas as someone else’s problem, but we need to be prepared for that,” he said.