Accelerating meaningful innovation in global health

The pace and scale of innovation to combat the Covid-19 pandemic was on a magnitude never seen before. It demonstrated the capabilities of innovators inside and outside the health sector to meet enormous challenges head on and find effective solutions quickly. But this success was also tarnished by extreme lack of access in many countries.

What if the same skill, knowledge, imagination and entrepreneurialism could be harnessed to tackle even more of the great challenges in global health? This time with an eye on more equitable access to innovations. With the right incentives and policies, it is possible to build a more equitable system that will address demographic shifts within and between countries.

A good starting point

Current efforts championed by the Global Fund, Unitaid, private philanthropy and a growing number of middle income countries are focused on scaling up validated solutions and increasing access to new vaccines, diagnostics and drug treatments.

Whilst this scale-up of existing products has enormous impact, the current system lacks the capacity to foster innovation for diverse needs.

“Innovation curators”, who aim to disseminate knowledge about new solutions and practices, lack funding and support to verify and validate the innovations they develop. At the same time, local actors with context specific-experience are often left out of the mix.

Liberating clinicians from unnecessary tasks

Lack of access to healthcare is a challenge faced around the world. Health systems strengthening, local capacity building and task shifting all improve access.

By 2030, the WHO estimates there will be a shortfall of 15 million health workers.

This deficit is most extreme in LMICs, yet the WHO Regional Office for Europe estimates 40% of medical doctors are aged 55 years and over12 – representing a ticking time bomb for healthcare in the next decade.

In the UK there are 46,000 vacancies for nurses, while in England, the British Medical Association estimates that a further 46,300 doctors are needed for the country to reach the OECD average for population served.
Solutions that allow remaining clinicians in the workforce to focus on frontline delivery are urgently needed.

Innovation focused on enabling task-shifting through cutting edge digital training and patient management could play a key role in health system strengthening and optimising the existing health workforce.

New solutions for a changing population

It’s not only the demographics and make-up of the health workforce that poses a challenge.

The shifting demographics of a population set to peak at 10.4 billion in the 60 years time will see more people living well into old age in most countries.

Fair access to healthcare provision, medicines, vaccines, assistive technologies and medical personnel at all stages in life is imperative.

In high income economies, we are already grappling with the inadequacies of health systems not designed to look after an ageing population living well into its 80s, 90s and beyond.

As populations increase, the challenges we face will become more acute and require new solutions and an ever more urgent rate.

Human-centred innovation

For innovators to succeed, our experience in delivering challenge prizes has shown that they need to design their solutions in dialogue with their end-users and end-beneficiaries.

There is little point investing time and effort developing a new technology, diagnostic or service, if it does not serve the needs and realities of the people expecting to use them. Human-centred design is at the heart of challenge prizes, and key to the future success of solutions that meet the growing health needs of the world’s shifting population.

Just one example is the Longitude Prize on Dementia – a partnership with Innovate UK and Alzheimer’s Society. Through the prize, we are incentivising the creation of a new generation of AI and Machine Learning-enabled technologies designed to adapt to the changing condition of a person living with dementia, so that they can keep doing the things in life that bring them purpose and enjoyment.

The prize has been co-designed with people living with dementia and carers. It will connect innovators with people working in the dementia care sector and to people living with the condition to ensure technologies are designed with the end-beneficiaries at their heart.

The prize’s Lived Experience Advisory Panel will share its opinions about the successful entries to the prize to inform the judging panel.

By connecting innovators with end-users and beneficiaries from the outset, the potential for success increases, alongside the ability to bring about high-impact change in healthcare.

Work With Us

Challenge prizes galvanise innovators, entrepreneurs and industry disruptors to bring forward much needed solutions to complex and seemingly intractable issues. They are a tried and tested method of attracting new innovators to change the status quo.

We partner with institutions, foundations, charities and governments to co-design and launch challenge prizes that improve access to quality healthcare around the world.

Challenge prizes catalyse transformational change and mobilise the creativity of people from diverse disciplines at a global scale.

Talk to us about the global health challenges you want to see solved and discuss how together we can develop bold prizes that incentivise innovators to address the most urgent national and international health needs.

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