Health innovation

UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP) researches and influences the ways health innovation can be more mission-oriented to realise major advances in areas of unmet health needs, as well as accessibility for patients and populations.

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To value health as a human right and prevent crises like COVID-19, we need an economic shift. This involves viewing health financing as an investment, aligning investment, innovation, and growth with the aim of promoting human and planetary health.

This has been the focus of the WHO Council on the Economics of Health for All. The Council was established in 2020 by Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (Director-General, WHO) to provide new economic thinking – reassessing how health and wellbeing are valued, produced and distributed across the economy. The Council was chaired by Professor Mariana Mazzucato, Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value and Founding Director of the UCL Institute for Innovation & Public Purpose, and composed of an all-female group of 10 distinguished economists and area experts.

The Council has focused on reimagining how to put “Health for All” at the heart of government decision-making and private sector collaboration at regional, national and international levels. Watch the short video to learn more about the recommendations in its final report, Health for All – transforming economies to deliver what matters, on what is needed to reorient the economy around the goal of “Health for All.”

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IIPP’s applies a market co-creating and shaping framework to set out alternative policy approaches to redefine health innovation and create symbiotic innovation ecosystems, which is firmly rooted in the concept of public value and the common good. IIPP’s work in health, exemplified by the flagship report “The People's Prescription: Re-imagining Health Innovation to Deliver Public Value”, has generated policy impact both at high level policy discussions across the world.

Policy engagement highlights

Engagements with the World Health Organization (WHO)

On 8 March 2022, leading economists and health experts call for radical rethinking to put health at centre
On 26 October 2021, top economists call for radical redirection of the economy to put Health for All at the centre in the run-up to G20.
On 8 June 2021, WHO Council on the Economics of Health For All called for health innovation to be governed by the common good.
On 6 May 2021, Director Mariana Mazzucato chaired the first meeting of the WHO Council on the Economics of Health For All. Its initial 11 members are distinguished experts in economics, health, government, finance and development from around the world.
On 13 November 2020, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus appoints IIPP Director Mariana Mazzucato to chair new Council on the Economics of Health for All.
On 29 May 2020, IIPP Director Mariana Mazzucato speaks at the launch of the WHO COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP) and endorses the Solidarity Call to Action to “realize equitable global access to COVID-19 health technologies through pooling of knowledge, intellectual property and data”.

Engagements around the People's Prescription report

On 6 September 2020, The United State National Institute of Health invited IIPP Director Mariana Mazzucato to give a seminar on the critical role of the public sector in innovation in health and beyond.
On 14 May 2020, IIPP Director Mariana Mazzucato joined more than 140 world leaders and experts, including the President of South Africa and Chair of the African Union, Cyril Ramaphosa, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, the President of the Republic of Senegal, Macky Sall and the President of the Republic of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in calling for a People’s Vaccine against Covid-19.
On 1st September 2019, IIPP’s health innovation report, ‘The people’s prescription: Re-imagining health innovation to deliver public value’, inspired the Labour Party’s 2019 pharmaceutical policy document, ‘Medicines for the Many: Public Health before Private Profit’.
On 18 December 2018, IIPP Director Mariana Mazzucato supported the Affordable Drug Manufacturing Act introduced by US Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Jan Schakowsky to reduce drug prices through public manufacturing of prescription drugs.