One of the institute’s key charitable funders was given no notice NeuRA was terminating its involvement with a trial the charity funded, while a wealth adviser has started to steer potential donors away from NeuRA.
NeuRA’s eWalk2 trial is testing electrical stimulation on people with spinal cord injuries to see if it can restore their ability to walk, after promising results in an earlier NeuRA study.
It was led by Gandevia and Professor Jane Butler, who were told earlier this year their contracts would not be renewed. (Via his lawyer, Gandevia declined to comment; Butler did not return a request for comment.)
“I haven’t heard a word from NeuRA,” said Lewis. “I don’t go into any of these things to try to get anything for me personally. The way I look at it, it is the only way a cure, or advancements can be made, is via research.”
EWalk2 received a $3 million taxpayer-funded research grant in 2023 and has funding from multiple charities, including SpinalCure.
“SpinalCure Australia had no forewarning of NeuRA’s decision to terminate its involvement with the research,” a SpinalCure spokesman said. The charity is confident a new home for the trials will be found with “minimal disruption”.
NeuRA’s spokesman said Gandevia and Butler were responsible for liaising with trial patients, and that the institute will return about $1 million in unspent donations to SpinalCure.
“NeuRA is meeting all of its contractual obligations in relation to eWALK2, noting that the project is ongoing and we continue to work with the project team on rehoming it,” the spokesman said.
“The project teams continue to work with each recruiting site to manage the transition away from NeuRA responsibly, including the safety and welfare of all participants.”
Internal correspondence seen by this masthead suggests NeuRA has ambitions to grow research funding to between $150 million and $300 million a year; revenue totalled just $35 million in 2024.
Of that, $6.2 million came from bequests, which are often negotiated directly between researchers and wealthy individuals.
A private wealth adviser has helped facilitate a multimillion-dollar bequest in recent years. Last year, they had a meeting with NeuRA to discuss how the funds were being spent, with the expectation NeuRA would be keen to follow the deceased client’s wishes.
“At that point they said … ‘We don’t have to talk to you, see you later’. It was like, right, you are absolutely blacklisted,” the adviser said, speaking anonymously to detail confidential conversations. “I find it absolutely staggering. I’ve relayed that experience with everybody and anybody.”
He suspected the money had instead gone to cover “bloated expenses. For a bloke who saved every dollar, that really grated with me.
“I was extremely disappointed with the experience and have gone out of my way to ensure my experience has been made known to other clients and others in the industry.”
NeuRA’s spokesman said: “As a matter of policy, NeuRA deploys every bequest exclusively as per the bequestor’s specification in their will.
“In one instance, NeuRA received unsolicited direction from a wealth manager to deploy a bequest in a manner totally inconsistent with the specific terms of the will. NeuRA naturally had to decline that request.”
Earlier this year, dozens of anonymous and unproven allegations of research misconduct about NeuRA’s chief executive Professor Matthew Kiernan were made online.
This masthead does not suggest there is veracity to the allegations made against Kiernan, only that the allegations exist.
NeuRA initially referred to them as “defamatory allegations” on an “anonymous, unverified website”.
The University of NSW is now leading an investigation into the allegations, which Kiernan said he welcomed.
“I am confident that these comments will be found to be without merit. I fully support the need for institutions such as UNSW Sydney to ensure all of its researchers uphold the highest standards of academic probity, which requires them to investigate all such comments.”
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After receiving what it termed a “request for service regarding work health and safety issues at NeuRA”, SafeWork NSW prompted NeuRA to review its legal obligations under work safety laws.
NeuRA’s spokesman said “a range of staff were consulted and NeuRA reviewed its processes and policies. SafeWork NSW did not require any response to the concern.”
Gandevia’s suspension stunned colleagues at NeuRA and across the country. “To me, it is inexplicable,” said Professor David Berlowitz, a specialist in spinal cord injury and chair of physiotherapy at the University of Melbourne.
“Simon Gandevia has led a great deal of physiological and human clinical studies in Australia. He has mentored and trained more than one generation of researchers,” he said. “I don’t understand it. It is inexplicable to me. I was quite frankly surprised. It’s not how I would go about it.”
He suggested NeuRA’s restructuring may have been driven by the financial struggles common across independent research institutes.
“The cost-of-research problem, I do feel like it’s at breaking point. We’re all at the point of being about to go broke. How do you go bankrupt? Slowly, and then all of a sudden.”
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