XClose

UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose

Home
Menu

The People's Prescription report calls for a transformation of the health innovation system

18 October 2018

A major overhaul of the health innovation system is needed, says a new report by IIPP Director Professor Mariana Mazzucato and health campaign groups—Stop Aids, Global Justice Now and Just Treatment.

Mariana Mazzucato presents The people's prescription report

The people's prescription: Re-imagining health innovation to deliver public value is intended to spur policymakers into action by providing ideas, principles and policy proposals to create a better health innovation system that delivers innovative medicines for all who need them.

After articulating the key problems of the current model of pharmaceutical innovation (e.g. public health needs unmet, high prices, lack of transparency, and an increasingly financialised business model), the report presents key principles that would underpin a public-interest and health-driven approach to pharmaceutical innovation: directed mission setting, collaboration and transparency, affordability and access, and long-term horizons.

Only 4% of newly approved products were for neglected diseases

The remedies that follow are divided into two parts: first identifying immediate actions that governments can take to tackle the urgent crisis in patient access to medicines, and then a transformative approach based on mission-oriented research and innovation, learning from experiments across the world. We must do better.

The report launched on 17 October with an event at the Royal Society of Medicine, chaired by Lord Jim O'Neill (Chair of Chatham House, formerly Chair of the Review on Antimicrobial Resistance). 

Lord Jim O'Neill chairs the evening
Panel discussion

Professor Mariana Mazzucato, Director of IIPP and the lead author introduced the report, which was followed by responses from: 

  • Dr Charles Clift (Senior Consulting Fellow, Chatham House Centre on Global Health Security; Founding Chairman, Medicines Patent Pool)
  • Dr Mariângela Simão, (Assistant Director-General for Drug Access, Vaccines and Pharmaceuticals, World Health Organisation)
  • Professor Martin McKee (Professor of European Public Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; Co-Director, European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies) and
  • Professor Kalipso Chalkidou (Director of Global Health Policy and Senior Fellow, Center for Global Development; Founding Director, NICE International).

Launch video

YouTube Widget Placeholderhttps://youtu.be/fNiwBvlMXCQ

 
 

Event gallery