Panel, Conference Presentation
MI Summit 2013 - London: Funding Medical Breakthroughs, Enriching Society
- Public health population science is expected to undergo a transformation through the integration of information technology and genomic data, enabling large-scale tracking of antibiotic resistance and susceptibility.
- Sir Mark Walport plans to equip the UK government with tools to address the direct health impacts of climate change on natural infrastructure.
- Gary Nabel predicts the development of a universal flu vaccine administered every five years, potentially eliminating annual vaccination requirements and mitigating pandemic risks once current technical hurdles are overcome.
- Immune-based approaches for treating cancer are forecast to become scalable treatments within a few years, potentially causing complete tumor regression in patients with end-stage leukemias and lymphomas.
- Commercialization and manufacturing barriers for genetic cancer therapies are expected to be resolved, allowing global delivery of these treatments.
- New partnerships between academia, small enterprises, and large industry aim to accelerate drug development and bridge the "valley of death."
- The Innovative Medicine Initiatives are projected to mobilize nearly one billion euros to solve complex problems that individual partners cannot address alone.
- A new molecular taxonomy of disease is being developed to facilitate more targeted interventions and foster new business models, patents, and jobs.
- Public-public partnerships with member states are expected to significantly expedite the development and funding of clinical trials for HIV, malaria, tuberculosis, and neglected infectious diseases.
- The UK Biobank project, established around 2002, is expected to yield new insights into diseases such as chronic pulmonary disease through the analysis of 800,000 genomic data points.
- Whole genome sequencing is anticipated to become feasible for research within the next three to five years, though cost challenges regarding rapid technological changes remain.
- The UK government has committed £100 million to sequence 100,000 genomes within the NHS.
- Health informatics is expected to reduce amputations from vascular disease and improve diabetes testing efficacy by holding systems accountable.
- Follow-up studies using standard health informatics over ten years or more could cost only a few thousand pounds, significantly less than classical phase three studies.
- Regulators are expected to require accountability for both approving and stopping treatments to address incentive asymmetries.
- The pharmaceutical industry is expected to shift toward an open innovation model, collaborating with academic and venture communities to de-risk the estimated $5 billion cost of bringing a new drug to market.
- Testing therapeutic candidates in human trials sooner is predicted to accelerate development and increase success rates.
- Real-time population observation via informatics is expected to reveal drug interactions and effects in millions of patients that were undetectable in trials of tens of thousands.
- The Horizon 2020 framework program began in January 2014 with a focus on innovation and special programs for small and medium enterprises.
- The initial two years of Horizon 2020 will prioritize personalized health and care to address therapies that currently succeed in only 30 to 40 percent of patients.
- The UK Biobank maintains a very low dropout rate due to trusted funding agencies and NHS integration.
- The 500,000-person UK Biobank study is expected to generate significantly more discoveries than smaller studies like the 5,000-person Framingham study.
- Economic growth is expected to continue from the new Santa Fe research building in Boston, which generated over 27,000 jobs in the biotech pharma sector last year.
- Ecosystems are expected to be nurtured through funding for academic medical centers and collaboration between pharma, biotech, and venture capital to prevent job losses.
- The Rare Disease International Research Consortium aims to secure diagnostics for most rare diseases and develop 200 new therapies by 2020.
- Despite the ambitious rare disease goals, only two years of the initiative's timeline (starting in 2011) have passed.
- Gary Nabel warns that inertia and a lack of medical staff education may prevent simple, effective interventions from reaching healthcare systems.
- There is concern that the uptake of innovations is insufficient and that patient voices are not yet fully utilized to drive progress.
- Legal, data privacy, and ethical frameworks may fail to keep pace with medicinal science, potentially rendering existing laws unfit for purpose.
- Data privacy regulations pose a significant risk, as evidenced by the cessation of the Swedish national cohort of 500,000 people due to legal conflicts.