Innovation in an age of austerity

Introducing personalised healthcare to stratify patient groups and ensure everyone gets the best, most appropriate care is seen as a cost, but actually it is an opportunity to have a fitter and more productive population, and to develop new companies, new products and new markets.

But times are hard, and the stumbling block is building a convincing argument for investing in the development and implementation of personalised healthcare at a time when governments across Europe are slashing budgets. “We can’t ask for more money,” said Alexander von Gabain, Chairman of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT).

Instead, it is necessary to be more innovative in how the available cash is spent and to put greater effort into leveraging the value of existing public spending on research. “We’ve got to get everyone in the ecosystem to work together,” von Gabain told delegates at the Science|Business conference, ‘Personalised Healthcare: from Theory to Practice’ in London last week (26 Jan).

The basic research that is the first step in the chain is important, of course. “But all the other steps are equally important and need innovation,” said von Gabain, adding, “This is often not appreciated.”

von Gabain has a very broad perspective on innovation – as an academic researcher, as the founding entrepreneur of the Austrian vaccines specialist Intercell, and now in his role at EIT. To move on from the current linear approach to innovation in which a concept is handed sequentially up the value chain from basic research to market, it is necessary to create “novel innovation spaces” and “put entrepreneurs in the driving seat,” he believes.

Be smarter

Alongside leveraging basic research to advance the development and deployment of personalised healthcare, there is a need to leverage the investments in healthcare infrastructure and equipment that many countries in Europe initiated during the boom years at the beginning of the last decade.

Denmark, for example, has a significant hospital building programme, noted Jesper Nørregaard, Research Director at the Danish Institute for Health Services Research. “The country was investing anyway, so we need to try and do something smarter now on the back of this,” he said.

And payers need to see some concrete examples that personalised healthcare will save money. “Some short term wins would be good, to show there is value,” Nørregaard said.

Better connections

Turbo-charging knowledge diffusion is the key to leveraging existing investments in disparate aspects of personalised healthcare, in order to demonstrate its value, believes Matthias Haury, Head of Science Operations at COST (the European Cooperation in Science and Technology).

“We’ve got to make sure we are better connected and have better opportunities to exchange information across basic research, applied research, industry and society,” he said. “There are a lot of bottlenecks in the transfer of knowledge.”

One way to reduce the upfront costs of introducing personalised healthcare is to build on what is happening in different countries in Europe, to avoid repeating research that has been carried out elsewhere, and to create economies of scale.

Personalised healthcare is good for the economy

There’s a compelling reason why investing in personalised healthcare makes sense in an era of austerity, and that’s because it would boost the economy. “We have to argue [with governments] that it’s good for their countries,” said Richard Thompson, President of the Royal College of Physicians. A vaccine against the common cold would boost productivity; health products can be sold into other markets, he noted.

Adam Heathfield, Director of Science Policy Europe at Pfizer, agreed that spending on personalised healthcare should be prioritised, despite the requirement to cut government budgets. “It’s a way to spend money wisely and it opens up new opportunities,” he said. In addition, medical need creates a strong argument for investing in personalised healthcare. “Many people are suffering and dying from diseases that we think we can treat better if we optimise pharmaceutical intervention and the way we manage their care,” Heathfield said.

The conference was held to discuss the findings of a second major study of personalised healthcare coordinated by Science|Business. Using computer models that were fed with real-life data, the investigators at Vlerick Leuven Management School demonstrated that personalised healthcare can simultaneously reduce the burden of disease and cut healthcare costs. The study simulated the use of various personalisation measures in breast cancer and cardiovascular disease. Read more

The Vlerick study built on the findings of an earlier piece of research, published in 2010, which Science|Business conducted in partnership with the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.