Health care innovation accelerating on different track from other industries

Print 28 October 2016
Marie Powers / BioWorld

Addressing the state of health care innovation at the 2016 Medical Innovation Summit sponsored by Cleveland Clinic Innovations, a diverse panel of executives from disparate segments of the health care system agreed on one general principle: The industry is changing rapidly and in ways that look different from the face of innovation in any other industry.

The reason, they also concurred, is that patient care is fundamentally different from other industries, where consumers might be willing to accept a lower priced model rather than the top of the line. "The difference with heath care is that patients don't want a Corolla," said Bob McMahon, president of the U.S. market for Merck & Co. Inc. "They want the Tesla."

When consumers encounter barriers to optimal care, "there's a visceral response," he added, noting that companies throughout the health care delivery system need to operate creatively " to fulfill their social contract" without overpricing those services.

That final point, McMahon acknowledged, is an especially important take-home message for the biopharma industry as it faces an avalanche of criticism on drug pricing. But, he maintained, "the industry is not homogeneous," carefully segmenting "bad actors" he named as Turing Pharmaceuticals AG, Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. and Mylan NV from research-based biopharmas such as Merck, which he said spends $7.5 billion to $8 billion annually in drug R&D.

"We have a different business model," McMahon maintained, citing not only the company's R&D process but also the willingness of shareholders to accept a certain level of risk to invest in drug innovation with the prospect of a reasonable return.

Nevertheless, the drug pricing debate has created a level of uncertainty about the ability of biopharmas to continue developing innovative medicines, and that's a drag on the industry, he conceded. Biopharmas must address candidly whether new prescription drugs cost too much and the perception by consumers that they're "somehow being mistreated" by the industry.

"We take that very seriously," McMahon said. "We have to get to a point where the innovations that we do create, whether they're in hepatitis C or immuno-oncology or the next phase of diabetes medicine, are viewed as valuable." The biopharma industry has not advocated effectively in its own behalf, he added, allowing "other factoids" to dominate the conversation.

But if drug pricing has been a distraction, it's not preventing the health care innovation engine from roaring ahead. In his introduction to the panel, Michael Modic, the Cleveland Clinic's chief clinical transformation officer, pointed out that part of the challenge facing health care organizations is to move from "volume to value," focusing on aspects such as quality and safety for patients as well as providers along with access and affordability.

"Innovation in systems and processes is just as critical as in health care technology," Modic said, noting that, too often, the health care system has viewed patients "as the nails and we're the hammer." Innovating processes gives the industry an opportunity to stratify care delivery in a much more nuanced manner.

For pharma, the solution is its pipeline, where "you see more productivity, you need to see a higher impact and you need to go after diseases with the highest unmet need," McMahon said.

But that's just one of three critical innovation pieces for biopharma, he added, citing access and collaboration as the other two.

Going forward, "we have to do a lot better on those than we have in the last 10 years," he admitted.

For Bernd Montag, CEO of Siemens Healthineers, the solution is to reengineer processes, from improving stroke care to reducing hospital complication rates to marshaling data to make quicker diagnostic decisions.

Innovation "is about solving systemwide challenges," Montag said, cautioning, "We cannot be obsessed with a piece of technology."

Harold Paz, executive vice president and chief medical officer of Aetna, predicted the delivery system and its multiple players will move rapidly away from the traditional physician-centric health care model through a population-based approach that he called "the second curve" before rounding the bend to personalized health.

"How do you bring the data to the individual?" Paz asked. "How do you give them the resources to make the decisions they need to make to improve their health and health status?"

The ideal role of health care technology is to enable consumers to access their own health care data seamlessly, he maintained.

"The companies that can figure out how to do that well – to do it efficiently and effectively – and really put each individual and their physician in control of their own health destiny are going to be wildly successful," Paz said.

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