Blog from Global Forum On Biotechnology - The Evolving Promise Of The Life Sciences
Convergence and divergence were key themes of this OECD session on Monday morning which anticipated genomics developments in health and biomedicine. Vicky Seyfert-Margolis (Senior Advisor for Science Innovation and Policy, FDA) spoke about the FDA's mandate to promote innovation to public health within the context of an innovation ecosystem that is under significant stress. Seyfert-Margolis attributed this, in part, to a flawed model of translation which focuses too much on the academic drivers of tenure and promotion which reward an individual rather than team-based efforts: a different, portfolio approach is needed to get products to market. She argued that regulatory science is under-served as an academic discipline and that we need better tools for translation which force us to think harder and smarter about how to move the academy and government forward together in a way that involves patients - not as human research subjects - but as engaged partners.
Hans-Georg Eichler (EMA) described technology and policy as uneasy bed
fellows. He too spoke about the need to
bring the patient voice on board but reminded the audience that patients and
consumers constitute fundamentally different categories with different
priorities and perspectives. In his view, clinical development is expensive
because we use antiquated technology.
This was a case where we could make better use of existing tools and
greater use of electronic trials but this would require better alignment -
convergence - of technology and policy.
Robert
Urban
(David H Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, MIT) reminded us that
innovation went beyond simply knowledge creation but often resulted from
convergence at the interfaces between disparate disciplines. This process of confluence over time helps to
move us from knowledge to know-how but, as for the preceding speakers, he saw
regulatory science as a key component of this complex, multi-faceted process.
In
reporting on a study commissioned by the OECD Working Party on Biotechnology, Steve
Sturdy (Genomics Forum, University of Edinburgh) discussed some of the
drivers and barriers for promoting genomics for public health in the areas of
stratified medicine and infectious diseases.
Importantly, he reminded us that this is not always a case of
convergence: his study found significantly diverging views between countries
depending on their stage of economic development.
The
future of health and biomedicine in an age of convergence, in Urban's words, is
likely to be "Personalised, predictive, preventative and
participatory".
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