R.I. urged to better support biomed R&D

PROVIDENCE – Economic growth would result if Rhode Island – both publicly and privately – were to invest more directly in the groundbreaking ideas generated by the state’s biomedical sector, said U.S. Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy, D-R.I., during “Best and Brightest Forum on Medical Innovation,” a forum held Monday morning at Brown University.
“Rhode Island creates ideas, but investment banks take them to other states,” Kennedy said. “We need to own our medical innovation in order to create jobs here.”
Kennedy is working on a proposal to rearrange how the federal government funds biomedical research, trying to make the system less fragmented. But local money is crucial, too, Kennedy said, and while the Slater Technology Fund is doing a good job, it’s not enough.
Cosponsored by the Council for American Medical Innovation and the New England Biotech Association, the event was one of several being held nationwide and was meant to gather ideas to shape the fledgling council’s agenda, with the ultimate goal of influencing the Obama Administration to make policy and budget choices that promote biomedical innovation and economic growth.
The council’s chairman, former U.S. House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt, who moderated the discussion, noted that in Rhode Island alone, the biopharmaceutical sector employed more than 10,000 people in 2006, generated more than $2.3 billion in economic output, and invested more than $24 million in research and development.
Across the country, Gephardt said, health care is a top employer, and medical innovation is “a way out of our economic crisis,” both because of the economic growth it generates, and because medical advances can sharply reduce the economic toll of disease.
Rhode Island is a natural place for a forum like this, Gephardt said, because it’s “a very important center of excellence for medical research and discovery.” And indeed, panelists and audience members alike had plenty to say.
Peter J. Snyder, vice president of research at Lifespan, said Rhode Island needs to promote collaboration in this sector, so individual entities are not shouldering the cost all by themselves.
Lifespan’s hospitals now attract more than $80 million per year in research funding, he said, and they are pumping as much as nearly $15 million per year of their own money into research, and making major capital investments to expand lab space. But they can’t keep investing in isolation, as they have typically done in the past.
“We need to spread the risk and also spread the benefit that would come from expanding our capabilities,” he said.
Stephen Lane, chief executive officer of Ximedica, a medical device development firm in Providence, said it’s important not to forget medical devices – and medication delivery systems – in these discussions, because that’s a sector with lots of potential for growth.
Lane and several others noted the advantage that Rhode Island has in being so compact and interconnected, with all major stakeholders readily available. Kennedy jumped on that, saying CVS Caremark Corp. in particular could be a major resource, especially given Chairman, President and CEO Thomas M. Ryan’s commitment to the state and to the University of Rhode Island.
“He’s a salesman for us, but we’re not utilizing him,” he said.
Asked what more universities could do, Dr. Leonard Bell, CEO of Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc. in Smithfield said creating more ready-to-use lab space would be a big help.
But Bell and others also stressed that national-level policies are crucial to the success of biomedical innovators. All the miracle drugs in the world are worthless, for example, if insurers’ annual and/or lifetime benefit caps put them out of patients’ reach, he said, so well-crafted health insurance reforms must be passed.