‘Personalized Health Manifesto’ Unveiled at Translational Medicine Alliance Forum in Washington

WASHINGTON, DC–(Marketwire – October 14, 2010) –  Despite the promise of a new era of health care in which medicine has shifted from treating conditions to emphasizing prevention fueled by individualized care, a significant gap remains in realizing its benefits because of outmoded attitudes, protocols and procedures targeted for treating mass populations. Such is the core argument and motivation behind the “Personalized Health Manifesto,” released today to kick off the 2010 Translational Medicine Alliance Forum (TMAF) at the Mandarin Oriental. 

Written by journalist and best-selling author David Ewing Duncan and funded by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the manifesto is “an old-fashioned call to arms and action plan for a new age of health care” that takes direct aim at the challenges of integrating and implementing personalized health care in the United States and seeks to accelerate the incorporation of personalized health into the current health care system.

“Making this shift to personalized health is a formidable task that will take many years to accomplish, but having scientists and health care leaders sign on to a comprehensive plan is a powerful place to start,” Duncan said. “Launching a new era of personalized health will not require the creation of a radical new blueprint for change. We can use existing plans and reforms that individuals inside and outside of government have already proposed.”

“The manifesto is a fitting catalyst for conversation about how we can better and more quickly get cures to patients amid the billions being spent on research and drug development,” said Lesa Mitchell, vice president of advancing innovation at the Kauffman Foundation. “It directs us to focus on what we need to treat a patient, what we need to change in policy, what do we need to change in process, and how we need to more broadly share data to get the patient what he or she needs.” 

The manifesto’s “action plan” aims to set a new direction for health care, emphasizing prediction, prevention, individualized care and healthy wellness to ensure that the best medicines make it to the marketplace and optimize patient care. By focusing on the whole human organism, the manifesto challenges the prevailing use of drugs and protocols to target populations and averages rather than individuals. It further outlines the necessary groundwork for speeding up the process of moving from research to new drugs and other products and treatments by introducing more effective models that will ultimately improve health and reduce health care costs.

The manifesto was prepared with input from life science leaders representing medicine, business, government, patients, law and the media. Although the work is solely that of the author, these advisors have endorsed the manifesto, and many of them are convening at the TMAF today. The manifesto organizers hope to acquire the endorsement of at least 500 life science leaders by the end of the year. Anyone who reads the manifesto can add their name to the list of endorsers and leave comments by visiting www.kauffman.org/healthmanifesto.

The full manifesto is available at www.kauffman.org/manifesto.

The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation is a private nonpartisan foundation that works to harness the power of entrepreneurship and innovation to grow economies and improve human welfare. Through its research and other initiatives, the Kauffman Foundation aims to open young people’s eyes to the possibility of entrepreneurship, promote entrepreneurship education, raise awareness of entrepreneurship-friendly policies, and find alternative pathways for the commercialization of new knowledge and technologies. It also works to prepare students to be innovators, entrepreneurs and skilled workers in the 21st century economy through initiatives designed to improve learning in math, engineering, science and technology. Founded by late entrepreneur and philanthropist Ewing Marion Kauffman, the Foundation is based in Kansas City, Mo. and has approximately $2 billion in assets. For more information, visit www.kauffman.org, and follow the Foundation on www.twitter.com/kauffmanfdn and www.facebook.com/kauffmanfdn.

David Ewing Duncan is an award-winning, best-selling author of seven books published in 19 languages; he is a journalist and a television, radio and film producer and correspondent. His most recent book is the bestseller Experimental Man: What one man’s body reveals about his future, your health, and our toxic world. He is Chief Correspondent of public radio’s Biotech Nation and a columnist for Fortune. He is the Director of the Center of Life Science Policy at UC Berkeley. He has been a commentator on NPR’s Morning Edition, and a contributing editor for Wired, Discover and Conde Nast Portfolio. David writes for The New York Times, National Geographic, Harper’s, Atlantic Monthly, the San Francisco Chronicle, and many other publications. He is a former special correspondent and producer for ABC Nightline and a correspondent for NOVA’s ScienceNOW! He has won numerous awards including the Magazine Story of the Year from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. His articles have twice been cited in nominations for National Magazine Awards, and his work has appeared twice in The Best American Science and Nature Writing. He is a graduate of Vassar College and now lives in San Francisco.

The Translational Medicine Alliance Forum, hosted by the Kauffman Foundation, the Council for American Medical Innovation and FasterCures, convenes with the common interest of accelerating translational research to the patient. The Forum brings together leaders from academia, government agencies, and pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and venture industries to work toward developing a deeper understanding of effective models to enable and accelerate the progress of translational medicine. Through focused, dynamic sessions and exclusive networking opportunities, attendees have the opportunity to learn about breakthrough approaches and progress on current best practices in translational medicine collaborations. This Forum will focus on the following topics: regulatory science, lessons from the most experienced translational models, how and why rare disease and pediatric medicine are changing the landscape, transparency and access to data, and reverse engineering translational science starting with the patient.

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