How open innovation is transforming healthcare

Scientists, clinicians, policymakers and business executives gathered this week in Cardiff, UK, to discuss ways of accelerating healthcare delivery and biotech breakthroughs using open-innovation models.

The approach, now emblematic of the software industry, has enjoyed increasing popularity in the healthcare sector of late, driven in part by rising R&D costs, loss of revenues from patent expirations and rapid technological change in the fields of wearables, new materials and big data.

In 2009, for example, manufacturer Eli Lilly launched a crowdsourced testing platform to facilitate global research on promising molecules that have the potential to become new medicines. Dubbed the “Open Innovation Drug Discovery program”, the platform now includes more than 360 universities, small biotechs and research institutes across 34 countries that use Lilly’s proprietary data to test their own compounds.

Patient care is another area reaping the benefits of open innovation. An effort by Harvard to develop innovative ideas to improve delivery of healthcare in the US, for example, generated 473 submissions in a few months—of which four were selected for further development. The top ideas range from a collaborative platform that links clinicians with patients to a web-based application that ensures more efficient use of national blood supplies. Finalists will meet with potential customers, investors and partners at an invitation-only conference in April and the winner will take home $150,000.

Open innovation has also become a tool of choice to explore the interactions between healthcare and other fields like big data and advanced materials—both of which will shape the future of diagnostics and imaging devices.

The Head Health Initiative—a $60m partnership between the NFL, GE, Under Armour and the US National Institute of Standards and Technology—uses this approach to identify new algorithms and materials that could help improve the diagnosis and treatment of mild brain injuries.

Announced last week, its third challenge will award up to $2m for advanced materials that better absorb or dissipate energy. Winners of the previous round included iDETECT, a portable headset for real-time detection of  concussion developed by an Emory-Georgia tech team, as well as a 3D printed honeycomb lattice developed by UCLA and Architected Materials. The lattice, which recovers its form and properties shortly after impact, could one day help replace the foam in helmets. It can also be augmented with carbon nanotubes to provide information on the location and severity of the impact.

Open innovation, then, seems to be on the rise across the entire healthcare value chain. Sustaining this momentum may require the sector to revisit some of the things it has become famous for, including tight control of intellectual property rights and a certain amount of skepticism voiced by doctors and scientists who feel that their problems are so specialised that no one outside of their field could solve them.

But there’s good news for the innovators who met in Cardiff: Most health execs and academics agree with them that open innovation is a winning model.

This post first appeared on GE LookAhead. Publication does not imply endorsement of views by the World Economic Forum.

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Author: Jennifer Silvi is a writer for GE LookAhead.