The Council for American Medical Innovation (CAMI) held a panel discussion and released a study on “Why Medical Innovation Matters: Creating Jobs, Finding Cures, and Ensuring U.S. Competitiveness. Panelists include leaders in research, medicine, public health, and business who are focused on preserving U.S. leadership in medical innovation, such as:
– Debra Lappin, President of CAMI
– Mitch Horowitz, Vice President and Managing Director, Battelle Research Corporation
– Kelly Slone, Director, Medical Industry Group, National Venture Capital Association
– Amy Comstock Rick, JD, Chief Executive Officer, Parkinson's Action Network
– Joseph Hunt, International President, International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Iron Workers Union
The discussion centered on how the United States faces serious challenges to maintaining its leadership position in medical innovation, evidenced by a recent report, which found the U.S. falling from first to third in global competitiveness.
This dialogue is crucial and much need considering the impact American medical innovators create, such as millions of high-paying jobs, and because their discoveries are integral in the fight to cure devastating illnesses. Accordingly, CAMI views leadership in medical innovation as a key part of America's economic recovery, future prosperity and health and so commissioned the Battelle Research Corporation to survey and report on the recommendations of experts for a renewed national commitment to medical innovation. The study, “Gone Tomorrow? A Call to Promote Medical Innovation, Create Jobs, and Find Cures in America,” reflects direct feedback of leaders representing patients, academia, private industry, research, labor, venture capital, government, and economic development.
CAMI Chairman, Congressman Dick Gephardt, who lead the discussion of this new national medical innovation policy agenda, noted that “medical innovation should be the key to continue our nation’s economic recovery,” especially since it help reduce our nation’s growing deficit. He noted that since “expert’s project that the health care sector will generate 3 million jobs from 2006 to 2016, with significant growth due to medical innovation,” now is the time to start working with industry to create such progress.
Medical innovation, according to Congressman Gephardt, “creates an array of high-paying positions across academic disciplines, management fields, health services and skilled trades.” What is crucial about these positions is that they open the door to significant “promise from medical discoveries, new technologies and cutting-edge procedures that are a direct result of America’s longtime leadership in medical innovation.”
Mr. Gephardt also recognized how medical and life sciences, research can transform local economies, using the example of “Michigan, which has seen serious job losses in many sectors, but the number of people working in life sciences increased by more than 10 percent between 1999 and 2006, and average wages jumped 29 percent.”
Then there is the impact of medical schools and teaching hospitals, such as in Iowa, which “have a combined economic impact of $4.1 billion, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges; Virginia, the economic impact is $9.9 billion; and in Ohio and California, it is $27.2 billion and $41.6 billion, respectively. He also praised the accomplishments of the Cleveland Clinic, which has helped launch more than 200 cutting-edge inventions per year, and has spun off 24 separate companies in the past decade.
Accordingly, he asserted that presently, America cannot afford to limit medical innovation any further, especially by forcing investment from industry elsewhere. As Mr. Gephardt points out, our country is “plagued with a shortage of capital and arbitrary limits on private investment, and the FDA’s approval process is lengthy, costly and presents more uncertainty for struggling entrepreneurs.” These limitations have caused our “talent pool to shrink,” as the U.S. ranked 16 out of 29 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries in science literacy, according to the latest scorecard from the National Center for Education Statistics, and 24 out of 29 OECD countries in mathematics.
America cannot afford to wait around any longer my limiting medical innovation. As Mr. Gephardt asserts, “we must do more to produce the next generation of highly educated scientific innovators, and we must train and retrain students and adults for jobs to support medical innovation.” To do so, America needs “a national strategy that will help us innovate our way out of our current economic crisis and create a path that ensures long-term opportunities.” Such a strategy will help with unemployment and skyrocketing deficits, and “would create incentives for sustained public and private investment in medical research, education and training.”
This approach would also “encourage public policies that spur technology transfer, appropriately protect intellectual property and help attract venture financing at all stages of research and development. It also would establish a tax and regulatory climate that encourages private enterprises — large and small — to participate in medical innovation,” which will “spur new businesses and establish a truly 21st-century work force, fueled by the skilled workers and increased productivity that are byproducts of continued innovation.”
In the end, the U.S. has maintained superiority with medical discovery and achievement for the past century, which “has dramatically improved our quality of life, driven our ability to compete globally and created countless new domestic employment and economic opportunities.” Accordingly, America needs “a national commitment to sustain the investments and partnerships that have led to these improvements to keep the U.S. competitive. This commitment is necessary for America to continue reaping the enormous economic and human benefits made possible through medical innovation.”