There is a growing interest in the use of innovation inducement prizes [1] to stimulate investments in medical research and development.
- The Obama Administration and the European Commission are exploring the role of innovation inducement prizes.
- On May 31, 2011, the European Parliament is holding one of several meetings on innovation inducement prizes for medical technologies.
- Senator Sanders recently introduced two bills [2] in the U.S. Senate on medical innovation prize funds, one of which would cover all perscription medicines (S. 1137), and another that would only deal with drugs for HIV/AIDS (S.1138)
- The World Health Organization (WHO) has convened an Consultive Expert Working Group (CEWG) to evaluate a number of proposals for innovation inducement prizes in the areas of neglected diseases, AIDS, tuberculosis, and cancer.
- MSF, the X-Prize Foundation, and several Latin American and Asian governments are considering a prize fund for low cost diagnostics for Tuberculosis.
- Thomas Pogge and Aidan Hollis are promoting a prize fund type mechanism.
- Several businesses are managing prize contests for solving discrete biomedical challenges.
On Friday, June 3, 2011, KEI will be hosting a technical workshop to discuss the de-linkage of R&D incentives from product prices, in the context of innovation inducement prizes. People who want to attend this event should sent a note to Krista Cox at krista.cox@keionline.org [3] no later than noon on June 2, 2011.
The 3 hour workshop will feature four speakers with considerable expertise in the area of innovation inducement prizes. There will be also extensive discussion among all workshop participants on several specific innovation prize design issues.
The speakers include, from left to right: Professor Paul Wilson [4] (Columbia University), Professor John Duffy [5] (University of Virgina School of Law, and GWU), Michael Behan [6] (Chief Counsel to Senator Sanders), and James Love [7](Director of KEI).
Date:
June 3, 2011
Time:
2pm to 5pm
Location:
Knowledge Ecology International
1621 Connecticut Ave., Suite 500
Washington, DC 2009