Charité Entrepreneurship Summit for Healthcare

Held in Berlin in March 2010, the Charité Entrepreneurship Summit for Healthcare brought together some 400 people − scientists, medics and tech transfer experts alongside entrepreneurs, business angels, venture capitalists and patent lawyers, among others − from Europe and the US. A central goal for the Summit was to look for innovative ways of bridging the 'valley of death', that chasm between the inspiration in the lab and its arrival as medication or an appliance in use.

The waning of creativity in Big Pharma, the cumbersome procedures of governments and traditional foundations, an organizational risk aversion quite separate from issues of patient safety – these are some of the barriers to be overcome through much more fluid and dynamic relationships between science, medicine, business and finance.

Foundations need to be focused on facilitating those relationships as well as funding the research process. An example of innovative practice is provided by the Myelin Repair Foundation, established by Scott Johnson, a veteran leader of commercial start-ups in the US. A sufferer from MS himself, he places the focus firmly on speeding up creativity, proactively seeking out partnerships and projects to develop – rather than passively waiting for satisfactory grant applications to come in – and then seeing projects through every stage from initial research to commercial development.

A key change in the last generation is that people like Johnson don't think twice about crossing the profit/non-profit or public/private boundaries where the regulatory framework permits. For them it's the goal that matters, and reaching it with the greatest speed and efficiency. The distinction between entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship more generally is not a useful one, said Stephan Gutzeit of Stiftung Charité (pictured), which organized the event in partnership with the US-based Kauffman Foundation. In this analysis, there is just an entrepreneurial spirit – and healthcare, and the philanthropy which supports it, needs more of it.

John Lotherington is Vice-President, Program Operations, Salzburg Global Seminar. Email jlotherington@SalzburgGlobal.org

Event Charité Entrepreneurship Summit for Healthcare
Date 15-17 March 2010
Location Berlin, Germany
Organizer Stiftung Charité

For more information
www.charite-summit.de