Sound Public Policy + World Class Science = Healthy Innovation Ecosystem
By Bart Peterson, JD, senior vice president of corporate affairs and communications at Lilly
I recently had a wonderful opportunity to address the National Health Research Forum, hosted by Research!America. As you may know, this important forum brings together leaders from the public and private sectors to discuss pressing matters that affect the future of research and development in our country.
As I mentioned in my speech, from 2000-2007 I had the honor of serving as the mayor of Indianapolis. Although Indianapolis has a solid economic base, I often wondered how other cities in my home state would fare in the headwinds of diverse economic challenges. Indiana is dotted with cities of fewer than 100,000 people all built up around manufacturing – cities that lost their manufacturing facilities to a shifting economy and an increasingly competitive global marketplace. What was going to be the future of these cities? Would they be on the map 50 years from now?
But that said, there were some Indiana cities of the same size that I never worried about at all. I didn’t worry about South Bend or West Lafayette or Bloomington. These are cities of 100,000 people or less, but they are home to the University of Notre Dame, Purdue University, and Indiana University. Continue reading →
Medical Innovation Creates Great Value for Patients, Society and the Economy
By Robert J. Hariri, MD, PhD, Chairman, Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Celgene Cellular Therapeutics.
Medical innovation is the source of dramatic improvements in the quality and length of life and also creates enormous value for society and the economy at large. For example, in 1900, the average U.S. life expectancy was 49 years. Today, it is 79. It is estimated by 2040, U.S. life expectancy will reach 85 years. This is primarily the result of innovation in medicine and improvements to public health. New medical treatments accounted for 45 percent of the increase in U.S. life expectancy between 1960 and 1997 and for nearly three-quarters of the increase in U.S life expectancy in the first decade of the 21st century.
Living longer, healthier lives translates to economic health as well. Economists’ Kevin Murphy, PhD, and Robert Topel, PhD, calculate that life expectancy gains from 1970 to 2000 have added approximately $3.2 trillion per year to national wealth. They also estimate that a 1% reduction in cancer mortality would be worth $500 billion to the U.S. economy.
Unfortunately, there are a number of misconceptions about new medical treatments that are based on outdated information, or failing to consider medical innovation in perspective. One misconception is that prescription drug spending is growing rapidly. In fact, is it not — spending on prescription drugs actually declined by 3.5 percent per capita in the U.S. last year. And the small portion of health care spending accounted for by prescription drugs actually saves money by reducing the need for other medical services. Continue reading →
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