The University of Michigan’s Medical Innovation Summit: From Pediatrics to Peking, Achieving Biomedical Innovation in a Global Healthcare Crisis

M-PED (in coordination with its partner organizations and companies) is planning for an inaugural 2012 Medical Innovation Summit. 

Within the next three years, the global population will reach an estimated seven billion people. Delivering on the promise of biomedical innovation while providing adequate and affordable healthcare to this huge and diverse population is among the greatest challenges of our time. Many developing nations still lack the necessary infrastructure for even basic healthcare delivery, let alone innovative biomedical product development. In developed nations, skyrocketing costs pose huge barriers to acquiring care-changing technology that can extend life, improve productivity, and enhance overall outcomes. While global challenges faced by innovative biomedical products are significant, many pediatric products face challenges of far greater proportion.

Between 1980 and 2000, medical technology was a key contributor to reducing mortality from heart attack, stroke, and breast cancer by 50, 30, and 20 percent, respectively, and extended life expectancy by more than three years. The U.S., E.U., Canada, China, Australia, Japan, and other nations have supported orphan product legislation and funding programs. Yet, progress toward the development of life-extending medical devices, diagnostics, and therapeutics for children and pediatric conditions lags behind. This lag is exacerbated by demands for spending cuts and system-wide cost control in a setting where the number one driver of growing healthcare costs is new medical technology. R&D budgets are already constrained and product development requires costly design, manufacturing, regulatory, and financial adaptations.

As the population continues to grow and place an ever-increasing demand on an already-taxed healthcare system, strategies to overcome innovation barriers could never be more useful.

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Please join us in March 2012 in Ann Arbor, Michigan for the University of Michigan Medical Innovation Center (MIC) inaugural biomedical innovation summit. Global participants from industry, academia, and government will converge to witness pediatric product success stories, develop strategies for overcoming commercial barriers, and collaboratively design solutions to emerging pediatric clinical markets.

Suggestions on topics, speakers, or content?  Please reply to this thread and let us know! 

If you/your company is interested in sponsorship or serving on our planning advisory board, please contact us directly at UM-MIC@med.umich.edu.