New England-Israel Life Sciences Summit

This past Monday I attended the New England-Israel Life Sciences Summit at Brandeis University, and got to learn about the great biotech and life science innovation happening in Israel.

The dinner keynote speaker was Israel Makov, former CEO of Teva Phamaceuticals, who gave his own prognosis for fixing what he sees as the critical issue of drug industry productivity, namely the collapse in the rate of Phase III approvals. I won't go into his plan here, but he gave some compelling statistics of why health care innovation and health care delivery reform are needed:
- The annual cost of treating cancer in the U.S. went from $13B in 1980 to $87B in 2007
- Drug effectiveness rates range from 62% for depression to 25% to cancer drugs
- In 1980, 5 US workers support 1 retiree. By 2050 3 US workers will support 1 retiree (and the rate is an even worse 2 to 1 in the EU)