Advancing Innovation... To Patients

Posted by: Mark Marich on September 20, 2010 Source: Policy Dialogue on Entrepreneurship

Despite the growing sophistication and promise of healthcare technology research, fewer and fewer breakthrough ideas are finding their way out of research institutions and into the hands of experienced clinicians and medical product development teams. Patients suffer as a result because promising research and innovation is not being translated into new treatments. If that sounds identical to the problems surrounding the typical challenges in bringing innovation into the marketplace, it's because it should.

Next month, the Translational Medicine Alliance Forum will gather a high-powered collection of experts from government and academia as well as pharmaceutical, biotechnology and venture industries to: identify strategies and platforms to improve early-stage commercialization of highly innovative technologies; discuss the future of research and regulation for translational medicine; and, enhance communication between top medical universities, major research foundations, and other stakeholder groups.

Formed in 2007 by the Kauffman Foundation, Adjuvant Global Advisors, and the Center for Emerging Technologies, the Alliance seeks to address what many perceive to be a national and international leadership vacuum in translational medicine. The 2010 Forum, scheduled for October 13-14 in Washington, DC, will focus on the following topics: regulatory science, lessons from the most experienced translational models, how and why rare disease and pediatric medicine are changing the landscape, transparency and access to data, and reverse engineering translational science starting with the patient. Visit the Forum website for an agenda with a full list of speakers.

Previous Forums were also held in 2007 and 2009.