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What is FasterCures

FasterCures/The Center for Accelerating Medical Solutions is a nonprofit think tank and catalyst for action that works across sectors and diseases to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the medical research enterprise. FasterCures, a center of the Milken Institute, is nonpartisan and independent of interest groups.

 

Why is FasterCures necessary?
For all the human and financial capital flowing through our healthcare system, it can still take nearly two decades to turn a research discovery into an accessible medical solution. FasterCures is working to clear the path between curiosity and cures by analyzing barriers to progress and overcoming them through action. 

  • To save lives, we must save time. Time in discovering breakthrough ideas; time in pursuing those ideas and turning them into therapies; time in bringing those therapies to patients. It takes 15 years on average to take a scientific discovery through development, testing, and regulatory approval. Thousands of people diagnosed with a deadly disease today cannot wait 15 years.
  • Medical research is an investment. A robust life sciences infrastructure is necessary to the nation’s well-being, economic standing, and global leadership. In fact, economists note that innovative medical research returns as much as $20 for every dollar invested.
  • Research must be outcomes-oriented. We need to create a medical research enterprise whose central organizing principle is curing disease. Consider that the number of “new molecular entities” approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration fell from 53 in 1996 to 25 in 2009 despite a massive increase in federal, private, and nonprofit spending in biomedical research.

Accelerating Medical Solutions
Be it lack of medical breakthroughs, limited resources, or restrictive policies that are stalling progress, patients are paying the price of delays in life or death consequences. More than 100 million Americans suffer from cancer, Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, Parkinson's disease, heart disease, and others for which there are still no cures – and, in many cases, few meaningful treatment options.

FasterCures’ mission is to accelerate the process of discovery and development of new medical solutions for deadly and debilitating diseases.

Learn more about our programs.