When I was asked to write a blog this week on the topic of how open innovation (OI) is driving new thinking in healthcare companies – my first thought was: When hasn’t OI driven new thinking in healthcare companies? During my career in academic biomedical research, many of my medical school colleagues were funded by such companies to conduct very focused research, and to participate in clinical trials of specific therapies. Pharmaceutical companies and other healthcare companies have a long history of working with the academic world to develop new drugs, understand mechanisms and assess effectiveness.

But one of the challenges I’ve faced at NineSigma is addressing the culture at some healthcare companies whose people may assume they are using OI effectively because of this type of previous experience. When I ask, where have you looked already to find a solution that can meet your needs? Most often the answer is, the experts that are already known and that the company has worked with before, and people identified based on searching for publications based on keywords specifically associated with the topic. But consider this: with such an approach, the same questions are asked of the same people over and over again.

Open innovation is more than that. Open innovation is reaching beyond what is already known, and thinking about problems and possible solutions in new ways. It may be as simple as reaching beyond an existing list of go-to people and organizations to expand across the globe, or as complex as developing an entirely new platform and business model for healthcare access.

These days, healthcare companies are doing more than just keeping the new drug pipeline flowing. With pressure from regulatory agencies to protect the environment (and us!) from accumulation of drugs and hormones in our water, safer drug disposal and “greener” formulation components are needed. With global economies changing, products to facilitate entry into new and emerging markets are of great interest. With energy costs rising, more efficient manufacturing is another big issue. Convenient new drug delivery platforms, novel medical devices, protection against sole source suppliers, overcoming long-standing technical hurdles, and adapting manufacturing for new drug formulations and delivery mechanisms are important current needs.

Many years ago, when my lab was located at Children’s Hospital in Seattle, Washington, the lead nephrologist held television interviews below my office window in response to some of the early pediatric cases of hemolytic uremic syndrome caused by E. coli O157:H7. So one of my hopes for the future of OI in healthcare is that work will be done that helps me feel secure that my family is protected against new diseases and global pandemics. What are yours?

According to the International Aids Vaccine Initiative’s website “IAVI is a global not-for-profit, public-private partnership whose mission is to ensure the development of a preventive HIV vaccine for use throughout the world”.  In addition to funding IAVI’s own scientific team, they offer grants to support selected HIV research projects.

IAVI has been working to develop vaccines that produce neutralizing antibodies (NAbs) against HIV to prevent infections and the development of AIDS.  Currently, there are no vaccines that produce NAbs against HIV but naturally occurring Nabs were discovered in an HIV infected patient who did not develop AIDS.  Although the target of these HIV NAbs was identified as a protein on the surface of the virus, the protein is too unstable to use in a vaccine and strategies to stabilize it have been unsuccessful. 

IAVI contacted NineSigma to help identify a population of scientists who specialize in protein stabilization but who may not have considered working on AIDS related research problems in the past.   This type of project is directly suited to NineSigma’s ability to find solutions from areas outside our client’s primary focus.  We worked with Dr. Hansi Dean at IAVI to draft an RFP entitled “Engineering Stable Proteins”, which focused on protein modification rather than HIV to attract the attention of a new group of protein scientists. More than 30 proposals were submitted from an international group of protein researchers, and IAVI assembled a committee to review and rank the proposals.  Preliminary funding decisions have been made, and we are looking forward to making a full announcement of the results shortly.

In just the past 25 years or so, new technologies like that for automated DNA sequencing have enabled us to begin to understand the language that encodes our biological lives. This is the language of the genome- in which our genes are sentences made up of DNA letters and words that are used as molecular instructions to each of our cells. What proteins should be made to build a heart muscle? What enzymes should be produced to control our blood sugar? What building blocks are needed to make new connections in our brains so that we remember what we’ve learned? Our current knowledge and understanding of the human genome is made possible by technological advances that scientists use to detect, measure, analyze, and compile new information obtained through experimentation in the field of molecular biology. We know what many of our genes are for; we also know some of what happens if a gene has a mistake in it, or is damaged. Such mutations can lead to innocuous individual variations, to inherited conditions, or to diseases like cancer, among others. It is this knowledge about specific genes that has allowed genetic tests to be developed that can predict the likelihood that you may develop certain diseases, like breast cancer.

On a broader level, complete genomes have been recorded from several individuals so that we know exactly what DNA sequences describe these people. The cost of compiling this information has ranged from $2.7 billion for the first one in 2003 to $1,500 today, according to Wired magazine’s online article, and is predicted to go even lower. As far as I can tell, even these numbers don’t take into account the time and cost of all the technological innovations required to enable researchers to do the work! But the idea that every one of us could soon have our own genome “read” so that we can learn more about our sensitivity to certain drugs, or about how effective our medications are likely to be, is the subject of new fields called pharmacogenetics and pharmacogenomics- perhaps better known as personalized medicine. These new fields address how your genes control the way you respond to certain drugs, and why different people (with genetic variations) will respond to a certain drug in different ways.

New technologies are going to be required to allow us to personalize our healthcare to adapt to our individual genetic variations. Inexpensive genome sequencers are in the works, and at NineSigma, I’ve seen an incredible variety of new medical devices and diagnostic technologies presented in response to challenges we’ve posted on behalf of global clients.  What is especially exciting for me, and something that NineSigma prides itself on, is that we often find a technology from one area that may be relevant to a completely different industry. Advances in personalized medicine, while valuable and even essential for human health and well-being, might be applicable in other sectors. A tiny genetic lab-on-a-chip might be useful for an individual’s medical diagnosis, but may also be useful to detect microbial contamination in an industrial setting.  As personalized medicine moves forward, this is an exciting time to be part of the innovation world!

For more information about how open innovation can assist with new product development, contact us today.