Recently in Innovation Category

UPDATE: Apparently Dr. Steinman died a few days ago, and the committee was not aware. Whatever the outcome of the award with this latest development (Nobels are not awarded posthumously), Dr. Steinman's work is important. Out thoughts are with his family, friends, and colleagues. 

Congratulations to Bruce Beutler (US), Jules Hoffmann (France), and  Ralph Steinman (Canadian born, but based in the US), three scientists who share the Nobel Prize in medicine. The Nobel Committee announced the award at Stockholm's Karolinska Institute. According to the NY Times, the work of the three scientists has "enabled the development of improved vaccines against infectious diseases. In the long term they could also yield better treatments of cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and chronic inflammatory diseases."

Great news for patients--let's hear it for innovation!

Those of us who live and work in the Triangle area of North Carolina (Chapel Hill--Durham--Raleigh) know we've got a good thing going. Now the 14 million passengers on Delta will be able to read all about it when they're flying around the world or the U.S. during the month of July. The Triangle, and companies including GlaxoSmithKline, are featured in a 36-page section of the Delta Sky Magazine found in the airline's passenger seatbacks.

Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker and Durham Mayor Bill Bell joined with executives from Delta, the Raleigh-Durham International Airport and area leaders to celebrate the official recognition and bragging rights. The article, headlined "The Power of Three," looks at how North Carolina in the 1950s chose to capitalize on its three world-renown research universities--Duke, North Carolina State, and the University of North Carolina--to create a thriving center of innovation, culture, and diversity.

There were 41 interviews with well known local residents including Duke Basketball Coach Mike Krzyzewski, musician Branford Marsalis, and GSK's own Chief Medical Officer Ellen Strahlman. For GSK, North Carolina is home to about 5,000 employees in R&D, manufacturing and commercial operations. It was here that GSK scientists joined with colleagues at the National Cancer Institute and Duke University to develop the first therapy targeting HIV/AIDs in 1987. Most of GSK's medicines for the US are made in the state. And the company contributes about $1.7 million a year to nonprofit organizations focusing on health and education in the state.

So there's a lot more to this area than sweet tea, barbecue, and basketball. Maybe that's what really attracted folks from around the world and what keeps them so happy. Read all about it here.

Generations of scientists have worked with physicians and patients to deliver medicines that treat and prevent diseases better than ever before. We are learning more each day about how the body works, how to manage disease more safely and effectively and how to prevent or eliminate diseases that once were fatal. New medicines still offer the promise of helping us feel better, be more productive, and reduce our overall healthcare bill. One area of research that seems to be showing promise is the relationship between gender and symptoms.

Did you know that some diseases affect women more often than men? Or that women may suffer different symptoms from the same disease?

It's true that women are more often affected by diseases including osteoporosis, multiple sclerosis, depression, rheumatoid arthritis, and age-related macular degeneration.

Dr. Lorraine Fitzpatrick is a Medicine Development Leader for GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) working to better understand one of those diseases--postmenopausal osteoporosis--and to develop new medicines to treat this bone disease which affects about 8 million American women and 2 million American men.

She notes that long ago, most of the medical research was in men. But today scientists are making progress understanding some of the science behind the differences in health between men and women.

For example, Dr. Fitzpatrick said we know today that women's bodies react to stress by producing higher levels of cytokines. This could lead to increased frequency in women of autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis.

But there is much more to learn. Listen to an interview with Dr. Fitzpatrick or read more about the 851 medicines in development for diseases that disproportionately affect women. 

Today GSK continues its journey to increase transparency and allow the public more insight into our company operations by publishing our U.S. research payments. I was the chief compliance representative on a cross-functional team for this project, and this represents--for me--the culmination of two years of effort.  It is one day in my career that I will look back on with pride. 

While our critics may discount our work, I think it's important to remember that this is a voluntary disclosure - no one is forcing us to publish this information. It would have been easier to wait until 2013 when the federal Sunshine Act provisions come into effect in the U.S. This legislation will require the pharmaceutical and device industries to collect information on payments to physicians and submit it to the government for potential posting from 2013 on. However, we've chosen to tackle the transparency issue head-on, assemble the data and put it in the public domain for all to see, and, perhaps more importantly, critique. We want public feedback, and visitors to our website can comment by calling the GSK Response Center.

Last week I attended a symposium at the US Department of State titled "The Role of Innovation in Addressing Global Health." GSK CEO Andrew Witty had been asked to participate in a roundtable discussion on ideas on how the public and private sectors can work together to overcome diseases of the developing world. The event, hosted by Under Secretary of State Robert Hormats, marked the first time the US Government convened a multi-agency dialogue geared towards creating public-private partnerships to address global health challenges. Representatives from across the global health community--from the White House, State Department, USAID, the President's Malaria Initiative, Health and Human Services (HHS), USTR, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, World Bank, Sabin Vaccine Institute--participated in the program.

Over the past two years, GSK has expanded a number of its commitments to improve research and development in the field of neglected tropical disease, and to expand access to these medicines. 

Through my work in communications at GSK, I've had the opportunity to hear our executives speak about our commitments to global health many times with great pride.  What always seems to resonate with me is our mission.  Andrew may have said it best at the event when he remarked, "The mission of GSK is very simple--to help people to do more, feel better, live longer. Nowhere in that mission does it say (If they can afford it).  (If they happen to live in the West). It's a simple, broad, all encompassing statement and it essentially encapsulates everyone who works for the company."

We take our responsibility to patients around the world seriously.  It's what drives our tens of thousands of employees to come to work and what inspires us to be more responsive, flexible and open to new ideas that address the challenges that face us.

Learn more about how GSK contributes to the developing world, as well as innovative ideas being pursued by the US Government and NGO community. 

We learned this week that the pharmaceutical industry invested a record $67.4 billion in research and development in 2010, up from $65.9 billion in 2009. In these challenging economic times, this is encouraging news. It means scientists are hard at work searching for new medicines and vaccines that offer the promise of improved health for many Americans. Also encouraging is the fact that more than 3,000 medicines are currently in clinical trials or FDA review in the US, up from 2,400 in 2005, increasing our chances of finding ways to combat some of our most burdensome diseases.

If you are like me and have watched a loved one suffer through Alzheimer's disease, you know the personal and financial toll it can take. A recent report from the Alzheimer's Association found that on our current trajectory Alzheimer's disease (AD) in adults over 65 will cost $1 trillion per year by 2050 and a total of $20 trillion in the next 40 years. New disease-modifying treatments could change that trajectory.  A new treatment that delays the onset of AD by 5 years would push back the growth in new cases reducing the number of people with the disease by 43% and saving $447 billion a year by 2050.

My job involves policy and politics and these are not arenas where people generally agree on much, but I think we would all agree that increasing investment in research gives us hope for a healthier tomorrow.

Some time ago, our CEO, Andrew Witty, issued an innovation challenge to IT: find new ways that technology can help the business. Our IT team started doing research on how to reach doctors in developing worlds, where the geography is vast, through the internet and mobile devices. We kept coming across news unrelated to our project--devastating news about counterfeit medicines and the harm they bring patients.

Counterfeit medicines are a big problem in Africa; an estimated 10-30% of the products sold are counterfeit. The counterfeit products, often sold in open markets, vary from toothpaste to medications for life-threatening conditions. There's no way to know what is real and what is fake.

Last summer, I read an interesting article about mobile phone use and technology in Africa. A man from Ghana had started a small start-up company in the US using SMS texting to protect consumers from counterfeit products.  My team and I called the company to learn more, and we liked what we heard.

We talked to the General Manager in Nigeria and then made the connections between the various GSK groups in Nigeria, Manufacturing, IT and Corporate.  Manufacturing, as it turns out, was already doing a serialization project to assign individual numerical identifiers to products. We decided to launch a pilot in Nigeria.

The way it works is simple. Every package of our antibiotic (1.7 million units in all) has a unique, scratch-off code. Consumers send the code via a SMS text message to a central, toll-free phone number for verification. The mobile service looks up the code and sends a verification text back to the consumer. Consumers can also call a toll-free phone number if they have any questions.

In February 2011, when the codes began to appear on the packaging, consumers immediately began to text. The initial numbers were so high, reaching 1,000 texts per day within the first few weeks, we almost didn't believe them. This month, GSK and the Nigerian regulatory agency will launch an awareness campaign, and we expect the numbers to climb.  If the pilot shows continued success, we'll plan to expand the program to other products and other countries.

Consumers now have the power to detect fake drugs. That's an innovation we can all be proud of.

This week, the Senate passed an important piece of legislation that would strengthen our nation's patent system, spurring innovation and creating jobs. If enacted into law, The America Invests Act will make the first major reforms to America's patent system in 60 years. Imagine all the inventions and changes in technology that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has seen during that time. The legislation passed by the Senate will give the USPTO the tools and funding it needs to process patents in a more effective and efficient way and make America more competitive in the global marketplace.

Millions of jobs in America have their roots in innovation--including the 3.1 million jobs supported by the biopharmaceutical research sector. In 2009, biopharmaceutical companies invested more than $65 billion on the discovery and development of medicines, and roughly 2,900 compounds are currently being studied in the United States--more than in any other region. These figures are impressive given the current challenges that face the biopharmaceutical industry as patents on many familiar medicines expire. Duff Wilson's  New York Times article on March 6 and a follow-up piece by the American Council on Science and Health explain what's at stake, not only for the biopharmaceutical industry as a whole but for the patients we serve. Strengthening America's patent system with The America Invests Act is only one piece of this big picture, but it's an important move in the right direction. As President Obama said in his State of the Union address earlier this year, "The first step in winning the future is encouraging American innovation."

Plus, you can visit the World of GSK--a related interactive feature--while you're at it.