Summary
The Alliance for Health Innovation brings together a diverse set of cross-sector stakeholders committed to health innovation through the lens of equity and healthy aging. Its mission is to establish the importance of innovation in achieving healthy aging through investments, policy reforms, and strategic partnerships – both for the value to patients and for health system sustainability. The Alliance advocates for policy solutions supportive of a robust, thriving innovation sector developing new technologies, treatments, drugs and services that enable people to live longer – and healthier – lives. The relentless pursuit of innovation forms the bedrock of modern medicine and technological advancements. Thirty years ago, an HIV infection was a death sentence. Today, it’s a chronic disease that we can manage. For example, more than half of the People living with HIV in the U.S. are now over 50. We’ve seen comparable advancements in telecommunications where the smartphone has changed many people’s lives and can increasingly be used to monitor and improve our health. Underlining the importance of bringing stakeholders together with experts to discuss policy solutions and create awareness of the importance of innovation toward government officials and policymakers. Policy priorities of the Alliance include: spending on health innovation as an investment; re-imagine 21st-century aging and health needs; ensure that access to healthcare is judged by health equity metrics based on Innovation; emphasize the role of care delivery to all societies; encourage strong intellectual property protections
Planning and Implementation
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What was the challenge you were trying to address?
To achieve healthy aging, we must improve patient access to innovative treatments for communicable and non-communicable diseases. The Alliance for Health Innovation was launched because innovation drives the development, advancement, and discovery of medical products, treatments, and technologies necessary to achieve health equity and support healthy aging. The Alliance will play a central role in advocating for policy reforms and solutions that enable innovation.
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Who were you trying to impact?
Older people in general, Both older and younger people
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What sectors were you targeting?
Health
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Who else was involved?
Government, Civil Society Organization, Older People's Association, Academia, Health Care, Social Care, Private Sector
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How did older people participate?
Older people were part of the process at multiple or all stages
Lessons learned
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Please describe how collaboration worked in your initiative.
The Alliance for Health Innovation brings together a diverse set of cross-sector stakeholders from civil society organizations, older people’s associations, academia, health care, and the private sector committed to health innovation through the lens of equity and healthy aging. Through its activities in 2022, the Alliance has enabled its members to engage in conversation with – among others – the Chief Medical Officer at the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health (OASH), the Coordinator of the White House Cancer Moonshot, and the Deputy Director of Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation (CMMI/CMS).
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What was the impact of your initiative on older people, their families, and/or their communities?
The Alliance for Health Innovation was publicly launched in November 2022 and has successfully brought together a diverse group of stakeholders to advocate for policy solutions supportive of a robust, thriving innovation sector. Throughout 2022 the Alliance advocated for transparency about the possible negative impact of drug price negotiations in the United States on the development of innovative new drugs and treatments and the importance of preventing the usage of discriminatory conventional value assessment methodologies such as quality-adjusted life years (QALY) that result in older people being disproportionally excluded from access to life-saving medical treatments based on their age.
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What issues did you face, and how did you address them?
The Alliance for Health Innovation has noticed that government officials and policymakers are generally positive toward the need for innovation and the development of new life-saving treatments. At the same time, new policies that could have an adverse effect on innovation are not always mitigated and adapted to ensure that people can live longer – and healthier – lives. The result could be that well-intended policy changes inadvertently harm innovation and become a barrier to healthy aging. The Alliance and its members will continue to advocate for policies that allow innovation to thrive and that improve equitable access to new drugs and treatments.
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What lessons did you learn from implementing this initiative?
Through its activities in 2022, the Alliance for Health Innovation brought together a diverse set of cross-sector stakeholders committed to health innovation through the lens of equity and healthy aging. This has allowed the Alliance’s members to engage with a network of global experts to discuss policy solutions and create awareness of the importance of innovation toward government officials and policymakers, build meaningful connections, and amplify its messages to a broader audience. The most important learning based on the 2022 activities of the Alliance is the need to share information and engage in open dialogue with government officials and policymakers. Bringing stakeholders, experts, government officials, and policymakers with different viewpoints together has given them the opportunity to learn from each other and understand different viewpoints and motivations. Additionally, we have learned that well-intended policies are sometimes developed without taking possible negative effects into account. Through its activities, the Alliance has been able to advocate for taking these effects into account in order to allow innovation to thrive and improve equitable access to new drugs and treatments.
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Do you have any other reflections you would like to share?
GCOA represents a cross-section of global businesses, including technology, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, home care, financial, transportation, and consumer sectors. We engage global institutions, policymakers, and the public to drive debate on, create, and promote innovative policies and actions to transform challenges associated with the aging of the global population into opportunities for social engagement, productivity, and fiscal sustainability. From our viewpoint, the Decade of Healthy Ageing is an important enabler of our work because it brings attention to the challenges our aging societies face and lays the groundwork for collaboration between the public and private sectors to solve these challenges, empower older persons and improve healthy aging. The Alliance for Health Innovation leverages the Decade of Healthy Ageing to underline the importance of healthy aging and equal access to healthcare innovation. The goals of the Decade of Healthy Ageing align with the Alliance’s mission and strengthen its advocacy efforts toward government officials and policymakers.