Global health inequality is solvable, the right incentives are critical

The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated how rapidly innovation can advance health systems in response to a health crisis.

The speed of vaccine development has been unprecedented. New, digitally enabled surveillance and tracking techniques were rolled out on a global scale. Data sharing and cross-border co-operation saw clinical procedures established and tested to fight a shared enemy. Innovation was unleashed, and became a crucial enabler to advancing a truly worldwide response to the pandemic.

The pandemic response validated the potential of self-diagnosis and increased use of remote and digital tools to improve peoples’ lives. But the pandemic also exacerbated inequalities between countries and highlighted the vulnerabilities of the growing elderly population in high income countries. Health systems worldwide struggled to cope with the COVID-19 burden, this was more acute for under-resourced settings.

Diagnostic tests and vaccines went to the highest global bidders. By September 2021, of the 3.2 billion diagnostic tests performed worldwide 0.4% were used in LMICs3, 1.9% of the 5.82 billion vaccine doses were administered in lower resourced settings. This inequity made people living in LMICs angry and they have begun demanding a larger role in developing, testing and manufacturing life-saving health technologies locally.

The unequal distribution of COVID-19 diagnostic tests and vaccines was deemed a “moral failure” by the Director-General of the WHO.

The inequity in global healthcare provision was put under the spotlight during COVID-19, but it is a far greater issue that reaches far outside the pandemic response, and is not limited only to low- and middle-income countries. It is a problem on a global scale, but one that can be solved with ambition and the right incentives.

Assistive tech for people living with dementia

Challenge Works’ prizes unearth the boldest innovations to improve healthcare. They are designed to make an impact for people in diverse situations, both in high- and low- and middle-income countries.

The Longitude Prize on Dementia – a partnership with Innovate UK and Alzheimer’s Society – is 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.

Democratising access to surgery

Access to surgery in lower and middle income countries (LMICs) is stymied by a lack of trained surgeons and other practitioners that are performing surgeries. But most surgical training programmes are expensive and resource intensive.

They rely on access to cadavers, live animal training models and expensive technology-driven simulation-based training. Therefore, many LMIC-based practitioners often have less hands-on experience before operating on patients.

The Global Surgical Training Challenge is transforming training opportunities for general surgeons and clinical and medical officers that want to perfect or learn new procedures.

Effective upskilling means increased access for patients. For example medical officers who have been trained to perform bone fixation after a serious break will help ensure that patients avoid gangrene and potential loss of a limb.

Diagnostics for a silent pandemic

Antimicrobial resistance poses a significant threat to humanity. Described as a silent pandemic, in 2019, more than 1.2 million people worldwide – and potentially millions more – died as a direct result of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections.

In a recent report, health leaders have warned that antimicrobial resistance has become a leading cause of death globally, killing around 3,500 people every day.

No new antibiotic has been discovered since 1962 for the treatment of Gram-negative bacterial infections. Testing plays a critical role in reducing antibiotic resistance by improving diagnosis of infections to prevent unwarranted use of antibiotics, and to rapidly detect and contain resistant infections.

The £8m Longitude Prize on AMR has incentivised innovators to develop rapid diagnostic tests to identify whether infections are bacterial, whether they require antibiotics and which antibiotic to prescribe.

Now entering its final judging period, multiple diagnostic tests have been developed in pursuit of the prize, aiming to cut the 3-day time to result of traditional diagnostic testing to as little as an hour. But it is only one piece of the puzzle, the world needs new antibiotics, new stewardship programmes and new approaches to treating infections.

Incentivising innovation beyond health

Outside of health, our prizes in disability and assistive technology also demonstrate the impact challenge prizes can have. The Mobility Unlimited Challenge – funded by the Toyota Mobility Foundation – incentivised innovators to reimagine the wheelchair, a design fundamentally unchanged for a century.

The winner, a Scottish designer, himself a wheelchair user, was awarded $1 million for the Phoenix i. The lightweight carbon-fibre chair uses sensors and AI to continuously shift the chair’s centre of gravity as its user moves – creating an intuitive experience for its user. Following the win in 2020, he is now on course to bring this revolutionary design to market thanks to the prize.

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 level.

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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