You don't have to look far in medical and scientific research today to feel the shifting sands and see signs of change. At times it seems we are simultaneously tilling the soil with a set of old yet tried and true tools while making new ones. Each year, as my organization prepares to bring together leaders in medical research, we confront all of this change head on.
As much as we all like to wring our hands and lament the challenges, the solutions are not always simple but are often elegant. We are supposed to embrace change and seek it out, but it can be a pain. What we have seen is that to reinvent, you have to understand where we are and then find those best practices and case studies that show a path forward, thus easing the pain a bit.
As change unfolds, let us imagine the possibilities:
- Imagine a research culture built on partnerships designed to meet the needs of patients. For years, we have looked at the venture philanthropy sector for models of collaboration -- and now we see more evidence than ever that partnerships between the disease foundations and other sectors in research can and do bear fruit. These groups clearly have an outsized impact. They've catalyzed change and paved a path toward real models for all sectors.
As we imagine these possibilities -- all of which are totally within our grasp -- I want to provide the context we're in. Right now, we are witnessing exactly how our biomedical and healthcare systems are coming to grips with the shifting sands of change. Case in point: What if we cure a disease? Outright cure it. Guess what? With the recent hepatitis C product development pioneered by Gilead, we have seen it this year.
And yet, we are witnessing a public debate about the very cost of pioneering innovation and the reality of introducing something new into a system not built for it. Many groups are working hard to predict what happens when the next cure comes down the pipeline, and hopefully the next after that. And it thrusts groups that were totally comfortable in their silo of medical research smack into the doctor's office and the payer decision tree about what innovation costs and whether we can absorb it given the steady uptick of the cost of healthcare.
There is so much to imagine, to celebrate, to be optimistic about in terms of our readiness for change. But we have a vast to-do list to accept the change and advance it. We must be determined to get it done. While the promise of science has never been hotter, the enormity of human need for solutions to disease is starting to weigh more and more. I recently testified in a roundtable convened by the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee as part of the 21st Century Cures initiative, and I cited the statistic that there are at least 7,500 rare diseases and only 500 treatments. This statistic illustrates how far we have to go. Chairman Fred Upton and Congresswoman Diana DeGette, who are at the helm of the 21st Century Cures initiative, are busy trying to create a piece of legislation that will break through some of the inefficiencies in today's system and help us achieve faster cures.
Change happens. Will it be enough so that we can save and transform more lives? I sure hope so. I'm so looking forward to watching some of it unfold at Partnering for Cures and beyond.