How to Drive More Disruptive Innovation in Healthcare
As we kick off this year’s PPH Summit in Amsterdam – our first outside the U.S. – today, December 12, I want to highlight a very positive and encouraging development we will be discussing: accelerating drug development and approval through biomarkers.
Research shows the biomarker neurofilament light protein (NfL) correlates positively with multiple sclerosis (MS), indicating we may be able to use the biomarker to effectively monitor MS and perhaps develop more effective treatments. But to drive these disruptive innovations in healthcare forward, we need more research on all neurological diseases.
Positive Steps Forward in Disruptive Healthcare Innovation
Fortunately, I’m pleased to report some very good news on this front. The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a philanthropic endeavor created by Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, has just launched a project with Wyss Institute (University of Pennsylvania) faculty members David Walt, Ph.D., and George Church, Ph.D., and Alice Chen-Plotkin, M.D. to develop tools to better diagnose and monitor the progression of Parkinson’s disease.
The project aims to identify biomarkers that can serve as indicators of early stage Parkinson’s, providing us with clues about the disease’s neuropathology. The sooner we can detect the disease, the sooner we can determine a course of action.
This is exactly the kind of proactive initiative we need to transform the system we currently have – which I call “sick care” – into real health care. Parkinson’s disease is a prime example of a tragic illness whose progression cannot be stalled or reversed by any known method.
As the Wyss Institute reports, “To date, treatments for Parkinson’s disease merely alleviate the motor symptoms in patients but do not slow down the progression of the disease. To improve therapeutic outcomes researchers must be able to track the progression of molecular changes in response to different medications.”
Similar to this effort by the Chan Zuckerberg initiative, the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research is also exploring disruptive ways to treat Parkinson’s itself rather than just the symptoms; the discovery of a biomarker would give a major boost to these amazing efforts. Ultimately, we may be able to develop a test that would go a long way in treating a disease that afflicts about a million people in the United States alone.
Join Us At PPH Next Year
At this year’s PPH Summit, I will be moderating a discussion dedicated to “Accelerating Neurology Research & Drug Development,” consisting of a global panel of some of the most esteemed researchers in the field. MS and Parkinson’s disease are just two neurological diseases that require identifiable biomarkers so we can more accurately monitor and ultimately treat them.
Based on current progress, I believe the next stage in powering precision health will be using biomarkers to speed up drug trials and approval, and this will be a key part of the conversation at PPH. To attend the summit in the future, you can request an invitation here.