Conversation with Debra Lappin

President, Council for American Medical Innovation

“Government, industry, academia, the private and nonprofit sectors must work together to ensure a fertile development ecosystem. Disruption is where we are. Business as usual will not allow us to innovate our way out of our current economic and health circumstances.”

A biologic drug changed Debra Lappin’s life, so she devoted her career and her considerable energies to advancing medical innovation. Lappin says our innovation ecosystem begs for creative, disruptive new public-private partnership that reflects some of the finest moments in our nation’s history. She reminds us that we’re all patients at some point in our lives – the issue is not about scientists, but about hundreds of millions of Americans. To her, innovation is a driver of productivity – of returning to jobs and creating jobs. It’s our nation’s grand opportunity for recovery through discovery.

I understand medical innovation has very much touched your family.
Deep in a successful career in oil and gas law, I was leveled with a rheumatic and autoimmune disease called Ankylosing Spondylitis. By my mid 30s, I had to take complete disability. At one point, I was in the hospital for 18 days, literally unable to move. I ended up spending 15-18 years on Methotrexate, an immuno-suppressant drug. Then in 1999, a very sophisticated new biologic drug came on the market. I was able to get on that drug early. Within weeks, I knew something wonderful was happening. In time, my family would know we had been given back a wife and mother. As it turned out, for many people with this disease, this protein-based therapy would become very nearly a miracle drug. It was for me.

How did you become involved in public health?
During those years in which I was ill, though weakened, I became very involved in volunteer public policy work for the arthritis community. I became chair of the Arthritis Foundation in the mid ‘90s. Once I was well, it was natural for me take my volunteer experience with the CDC and NIH and go back to work. There was no question that I’d take my legal and volunteer training and turn into the health and life sciences public policy sector.

What did you see as your opportunity for impact in healthcare policy?
I saw a need for the public voice in science. It’s critical that the public expectations for our scientific and medical enterprise be well-informed, expressed, and heard. We must demand that this magnificent enterprise serve our needs as a society, and that’s happening more and more. I saw an opportunity to drive public engagement in something very important.

Is driving public engagement still the focus of your work?
The purpose of the Council for American Medical Innovation fits with my own personal life story and my idea of career – using my legal expertise to impact these issues that have touched me so personally. How do we drive a new public policy agenda to advance and secure the promised return on medical innovation? We want the public to be sure that remarkable personal journeys like mine and so many other people’s will take place again and again.

What is possible if we take medical innovation seriously?
We cannot shore up our healthcare system without understanding the critical role that medical innovation must continue to play in driving health. Medical innovation is not a driver of cost, but of savings. It’s a driver of productivity, of returning to jobs, and of creating jobs. It’s our nation’s march toward recovery through discovery.

Do we as a people understand the potential impact?
I think we as members of the public need to understand … and say … what medical innovation means to our lives. It’s about all of us, hundreds of millions of Americans. Medical innovation is not just about scientists. We are all, at some point in our lives, a patient. This fact cuts across political philosophies and social systems. This issue is about America.

I’ve heard the term “innovation gap.” What is that?
It’s the gap between the extraordinary basic research system that we’ve fueled primarily through our federal government, and the therapeutic product development and delivery system that our private enterprise has driven beautifully. It’s the question of how we move discovery into application. The entire life sciences enterprise needs to be capitalized and incentivized to move great discoveries forward. This is a challenge.

To foster innovation, what do we need to do most?
I think about the innovation ecosystem in a way that begs for new public-private partnerships. I think we need a new innovation “sandbox” where it’s safe for government, nonprofit, academic, and industry interests to come together in a transparent way to move innovation rapidly from academia into development. We need a safe place to tackle conflicts of interest. All innovators need an appropriate piece of the intellectual property that’s generated. Other countries are producing models in which this is working, by the way. We need to give them a close look.

What would you say to representatives in Congress right now?
The Council for American Medical Innovation’s new report on how to bolster the American innovation ecosystem has a number of recommendations. Some are familiar, and some aren’t. But all demand a new concerted effort by Congress and the Administration. This new effort calls on the private sector and government to come together in a new way. It needs to mirror some of the finest such moments in our nation’s history when government and the private sector have stepped out of their comfort zones to address a daunting challenge of national significance.

It sounds like the new report calls for a measure of disruption.
It’s about disruption! Government, industry, academia, the private sector, and the nonprofit sector must work together to ensure a fertile development ecosystem. Business as usual will not allow us to innovate our way out of our current economic and health circumstances.

What economic benefits come from societal wellness?
Health means that individuals become productive again. Certainly, no one has captured the economic gain in my story, and people like me, from moving off disability into what I’m able to do today. We’re beginning to understand the cost of lost productivity in the workplace, and value of getting people back on their feet. Many have said that the jobs created by medical innovation are some of the finest that our country can produce. Through the jobs created, dollars invested in this area make America stronger.