Success
What Do We Need to Pursue Innovation?
At the FasterCures Summit on Innovation in Disease Research, Nobel Prize winner and FasterCures board member Dr. David Baltimore reviewed the changing demands on the traditional research system, noting that the infrastructure of the NIH is based on its founding principle to unlock the underlying questions of disease, i.e. basic research.
His talk led to a discussion of why innovative disease research organizations are needed – to create a parallel track of disease research that complements NIH's efforts while aggressively pursuing innovative research agendas. Group members identified the following components as essential to successful innovation in disease research:
Research Resources
- A better system to create and use patient medical records in research
- More human capital focused on clinical translational research
- Clear guidance documents and regulatory pathways from the federal government
- Guidelines for establishing and maintaining successful public-private partnerships
- An international perspective of the drug discovery and development process
- Collaboration on patient registries and recruitment for clinical trials.
Research Infrastructure
- Organizational transformation to address emerging research needs
- Integration of patient health records and electronic medical records for research into the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN)
- The successful implementation of a translational research initiative at NIH
- Increased funding and predictable rewards structure for cutting-edge research
Research Environment
- Increased awareness of the importance of translational research programs
- Effective communication of the complexity and value of medical research to the lay public and the media
- Unified advocacy behind key public policy issues (such as privacy, intellectual property, and ethical issues)
- Development of an information portal for disease research organizations to exchange best practices
- Goal-oriented intellectual property arrangements.
