Thursday, October 22, 2009
FasterCures' Margaret Anderson Writes about R&D Challenges in the Winter 2009 Milken Institute Review
With the Obama administration and Congress now negotiating reform, the American health care system as we know it may be about to undergo the most significant makeover since the introduction of Medicare. Meanwhile, the unprecedented public engagement on the fundamental issues faced by policymakers offers a window into systemic transformation in action. But as Americans focus on how best to deliver and pay for health care, we believe it is equally important not to lose sight of what I would call our "health cure" system. For unless we do a better job of translating promising scientific research into new means of preventing and treating disease, we will lack the wherewithal to contain health care costs -- or, for that matter, productivity losses and human suffering. Read the online print version of the Milken Institute Review.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Call for Presentations: Apply for One of 48 Slots Dedicated to Innovative Approaches to Medical Research
Apply for One of 48 Presentation Slots Dedicated to Innovative Approaches to Medical Research Submit your application today. Space is limited; decisions are made on a rolling basis.
By now we hope you're aware of Partnering for Cures, a first-of-its-kind conference being hosted by FasterCures December 1-3 in New York. Partnering for Cures will bring together a unique audience of philanthropists, medical research foundations, and biopharmaceutical companies interested in building cross-sector collaborations to accelerate the search for cures.
Partnering for Cures is inviting nonprofit foundations that fund medical research to apply to present their cutting-edge work and innovative strategies to potential investors and partners. This is one of the unique features of the event, which distinguishes it from other conferences on medical research or philanthropy, and is based on the proven model of industry partnering meetings. We are planning to feature 48 medical research foundations, each with the opportunity to provide a 25-minute overview of its strategy, operations, assets, capabilities, and funding needs to an audience of potential investors and partners.
There is an open application process for these slots, and we want to encourage your organization to apply for one. An external advisory committee will help review applications and provide input to the selection process. Your completed application will be reviewed by our committee and organizations will be notified of the decision, the first round in late-October and on a rolling basis after that. Space is limited, however, so organizations are encouraged to apply early. FasterCures will provide successful applicants with a template for their presentations and Web-based training to help foundations maximize this opportunity.
You must register for the conference in order to apply for a slot. Click here for information on the registration and application process.
We very much hope you avail of this unique opportunity!
By now we hope you're aware of Partnering for Cures, a first-of-its-kind conference being hosted by FasterCures December 1-3 in New York. Partnering for Cures will bring together a unique audience of philanthropists, medical research foundations, and biopharmaceutical companies interested in building cross-sector collaborations to accelerate the search for cures.
Partnering for Cures is inviting nonprofit foundations that fund medical research to apply to present their cutting-edge work and innovative strategies to potential investors and partners. This is one of the unique features of the event, which distinguishes it from other conferences on medical research or philanthropy, and is based on the proven model of industry partnering meetings. We are planning to feature 48 medical research foundations, each with the opportunity to provide a 25-minute overview of its strategy, operations, assets, capabilities, and funding needs to an audience of potential investors and partners.
There is an open application process for these slots, and we want to encourage your organization to apply for one. An external advisory committee will help review applications and provide input to the selection process. Your completed application will be reviewed by our committee and organizations will be notified of the decision, the first round in late-October and on a rolling basis after that. Space is limited, however, so organizations are encouraged to apply early. FasterCures will provide successful applicants with a template for their presentations and Web-based training to help foundations maximize this opportunity.
You must register for the conference in order to apply for a slot. Click here for information on the registration and application process.
We very much hope you avail of this unique opportunity!
Monday, October 19, 2009
Be an informed and engaged partner in medical research
Register today for Partnering for Cures, December 1-3 at the Millennium Broadway Hotel in New York City. This first-of-its-kind meeting will bring together philanthropy, medical research foundations, and the biopharmaceutical industry in an effort to forge strategic collaborations key to the timely development of new medical solutions.
Partnering for Cures combines the outcomes-oriented approach of investor conferences, the networking opportunities at biopharmaceutical industry partnering meetings, and the knowledge sharing that drives patient advocacy events.Some of the world's most forward-thinking leaders engaged in the top issues that impact biomedical research will be speaking at Partnering for Cures, including:
Partnering for Cures is convened by FasterCures, the Washington, D.C.-based center of the Milken Institute, that's committed to breaking down the barriers that exist across the research continuum - from basic research to drug development - to clear the path to faster medical progress.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Read Margaret Anderson's Blog on the Huffington Post
by Margaret Anderson, COO, FasterCures
Any patient will tell you: it doesn't really work in real life the way it works in medical dramas on TV. Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/margaret-anderson/life-isnt-house-but-can-w_b_307982.html
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Building the Platform for the 'Health Internet'
Kristin Schneeman, Program Director, FasterCures
For two days this week, I joined a group of leading thinkers and entrepreneurs from a variety of sectors gathered to discuss an idea that originated with Harvard’s Isaac Kohane and Ken Mandl – the development of an “iPhone-like platform” for health information technology (HIT). Their basic premise, expressed in a paper published in The New England Journal of Medicine last March, is that “a vibrant and evolving health system requires a healthcare information technology infrastructure based less on monolithic, pre-defined products and more on a general-purpose platform that would support a collection of simple applications each doing a single task consistently and reliably.”
Internet pioneer Mitch Kapor started the meeting with this proposal: that the federal government expand its efforts to enable a Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN) by engaging consumer health information platform providers and consumer health organizations as participants in the effort; instead of the status quo that focuses on standards for health information exchange among providers and government agencies. Kapor said the agenda for such an initiative would be to identify changes and extensions to NHIN specifications needed to support consumer requirements; to implement these changes in the government’s open-source CONNECT software gateway and elsewhere; with the goal of getting live patient data flowing by the second quarter of 2010.
Harvard Business School professor Clay Christensen, author of The Innovator’s Prescription on disruptive innovation in healthcare opened up day two with his analysis of what it will take to drive down costs in the healthcare system. In his view, the general hospital – which seeks to solve every problem for everybody – is no longer a sustainable business model. Care must become increasingly decentralized, and technology must be driven outward: to outpatient clinics, doctors’ offices, and even patients’ homes. In this environment, the locus of care coordination is a patient’s electronic health record. The patient/consumer must be at the center.
Lo and behold, by the end of day two, the federal government – in the form of President Obama’s Chief Technology Officer, Aneesh Chopra, and the Department of Health and Human Services’ CTO Todd Park – arrived and committed to doing exactly what Kapor had proposed. They even proposed renaming the NHIN the “Health Internet” (bless you, gentlemen). Many details remain to be worked out, of course, but the energy and enthusiasm of the dynamic duo of Chopra and Park was infectious, and many in the room committed their energy and resources to the project. The commitment of the new Administration to realizing the benefits of health IT is evident and welcome.
FasterCures’ interest in health IT is in research uses of electronic health information. We know the hosts of this meeting share the view that the value of HIT is as much in its potential to accelerate the development of new and better treatment options as it is in its ability to improve the quality of care and reduce costs. We are also interested in how patients can become drivers of disruption in the search for cures; those who suffer from disease are highly motivated to share their health information through vehicles like patient registries and social networking sites, and they are beginning to understand how they might leverage their data resources to influence the research agenda.
We hope the organizers of this new federal effort will make research uses of the network a priority, and that patient groups will be among the new stakeholders invited to the table. Then the Health Internet can revolutionize cures as well as care.
For two days this week, I joined a group of leading thinkers and entrepreneurs from a variety of sectors gathered to discuss an idea that originated with Harvard’s Isaac Kohane and Ken Mandl – the development of an “iPhone-like platform” for health information technology (HIT). Their basic premise, expressed in a paper published in The New England Journal of Medicine last March, is that “a vibrant and evolving health system requires a healthcare information technology infrastructure based less on monolithic, pre-defined products and more on a general-purpose platform that would support a collection of simple applications each doing a single task consistently and reliably.”
Internet pioneer Mitch Kapor started the meeting with this proposal: that the federal government expand its efforts to enable a Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN) by engaging consumer health information platform providers and consumer health organizations as participants in the effort; instead of the status quo that focuses on standards for health information exchange among providers and government agencies. Kapor said the agenda for such an initiative would be to identify changes and extensions to NHIN specifications needed to support consumer requirements; to implement these changes in the government’s open-source CONNECT software gateway and elsewhere; with the goal of getting live patient data flowing by the second quarter of 2010.
Harvard Business School professor Clay Christensen, author of The Innovator’s Prescription on disruptive innovation in healthcare opened up day two with his analysis of what it will take to drive down costs in the healthcare system. In his view, the general hospital – which seeks to solve every problem for everybody – is no longer a sustainable business model. Care must become increasingly decentralized, and technology must be driven outward: to outpatient clinics, doctors’ offices, and even patients’ homes. In this environment, the locus of care coordination is a patient’s electronic health record. The patient/consumer must be at the center.
Lo and behold, by the end of day two, the federal government – in the form of President Obama’s Chief Technology Officer, Aneesh Chopra, and the Department of Health and Human Services’ CTO Todd Park – arrived and committed to doing exactly what Kapor had proposed. They even proposed renaming the NHIN the “Health Internet” (bless you, gentlemen). Many details remain to be worked out, of course, but the energy and enthusiasm of the dynamic duo of Chopra and Park was infectious, and many in the room committed their energy and resources to the project. The commitment of the new Administration to realizing the benefits of health IT is evident and welcome.
FasterCures’ interest in health IT is in research uses of electronic health information. We know the hosts of this meeting share the view that the value of HIT is as much in its potential to accelerate the development of new and better treatment options as it is in its ability to improve the quality of care and reduce costs. We are also interested in how patients can become drivers of disruption in the search for cures; those who suffer from disease are highly motivated to share their health information through vehicles like patient registries and social networking sites, and they are beginning to understand how they might leverage their data resources to influence the research agenda.
We hope the organizers of this new federal effort will make research uses of the network a priority, and that patient groups will be among the new stakeholders invited to the table. Then the Health Internet can revolutionize cures as well as care.
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