Health innovation
To value health as a human right and prevent crises like COVID-19, we need an economic shift. This involves viewing health financing as an investment, aligning investment, innovation, and growth with the aim of promoting human and planetary health.
This has been the focus of the WHO Council on the Economics of Health for All.The Council was established in 2020 byDr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (Director-General, WHO) to provide new economic thinking –reassessing how health and wellbeing are valued, produced and distributed across the economy. The Council was chaired by, Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Valueand Founding Director of the 鶹ýƵվInstitute for Innovation & Public Purpose,and composed of an all-female group of 10 distinguished economistsand area experts.
The Council has focused onreimagining how to put “Health for All” at the heartof government decision-making and privatesector collaboration at regional, national andinternational levels.Watch theshort video to learn more about the recommendations in its final report,,on what is needed to reorient the economy around the goal of “Health for All.”
IIPP’s applies a market co-creating and shaping framework to set out alternative policy approaches to redefine health innovation and create symbiotic innovation ecosystems, which is firmly rooted in the concept of public value and the common good. IIPP’s work in health, exemplified by the flagship report “The People's Prescription: Re-imagining Health Innovation to Deliver Public Value”, has generated policy impact both at high level policy discussions across the world.
Policy engagement highlights
- Engagements with the World Health Organization (WHO)
- On 8 March 2022, leading economists and health experts call for radical rethinking to put health at centre
- On 26 October 2021,
- On 8 June 2021, WHO Council on the Economics of Health For All called for health innovation to be governed by the common good.
- On 6 May 2021, Director Mariana Mazzucato chaired the first meeting of the WHO Council on the Economics of Health For All. Its initial 11 members are distinguished experts in economics, health, government, finance and development from around the world.
- On 13 November 2020,World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus appoints IIPP Director Mariana Mazzucato to chair new .
- On 29 May 2020, IIPP Director Mariana Mazzucato speaks at the launch of the and endorses the Solidarity Call to Action to “realize equitable global access to COVID-19 health technologies through pooling of knowledge, intellectual property and data”.
- On 6 September 2020, The United State on the critical role of the public sector in innovation in health and beyond.
- On 14 May 2020, IIPP Director Mariana Mazzucato joinedmore than 140 world leaders and experts, including the President of South Africa and Chair of the African Union, Cyril Ramaphosa, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, the President of the Republic of Senegal, Macky Sall and the President of the Republic of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in calling for a against Covid-19.
- On 1st September 2019, IIPP’s health innovation report, ‘The people’s prescription: Re-imagining health innovation to deliver public value’, inspiredthe Labour Party’s 2019 pharmaceutical policy document, ‘’.
- On 18 December 2018, IIPP Director Mariana Mazzucato supportedthe Affordable Drug Manufacturing Act introduced by US Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Jan Schakowsky to .
Publication highlights
- Publications
- (23 May 2023)
- (19 April 2022)
- (8 March 2022)
- (26 October 2021)
- (9 June 2021)
- The People's Precription policy report(15 October 2018)
Research project
Rethinking the economics of medical innovation
Funded by the Open Society Foundations
Learn more about health innovation research at IIPP.
Thought leadership
- Op-eds
Written by Mariana Mazzucato
- (Project Syndicate)
- (Project Syndicate)
- (Project Syndicate)
- (Project Syndicate)
- (The Economist)
- (The Guardian)
- (Newsweek)
- (Project Syndicate/Social Europe)
- (Project Syndicate)
- (Financial Times)
- (Project Syndicate/WEF; featured as one idea among the top 5 ideas of the day in the newsletter of the )
- (Project Syndicate/WEF)
- (The New York Times)
- (Project Syndicate)
- (The Guardian)
- (Project Syndicate)
- (The Washington Post)
- (The Times)
Written by IIPPacademic staff and collaborators
- (BMJ)by
- (PLOS) by
- (STAT)by
- (Nature)by
- (Cell)by
- (BMJ) by
- (BMJ) by Els Torreele
- (STAT) by Els Torreele
- (BMJ) by Els Torreele
- (STAT) by Travis Whitfill
- (Newsweek) by Victor Roy
- (Institute for New Economic Thinking) by Rosie Collington
- Media highlights
- (World Health Organization website)
- (and on the Council on the Economics of Health for All staring from 9:00)
- (The Washington Post)
- (CNN)
- (BBC World News)
- (CoronaNomics)
IIPP news stories
- News stories
- Leading economists and health experts call for radical rethinking to put health at centre
- Leading economists and health experts call for radical economic redirection to put health at centre
- WHO Council on Economics for Health for All calling for health innovation to be governed by common good
- Global experts of new WHO Council on the Economics of Health For All announced
- IIPP Director Mariana Mazzucato to chair new WHO Council on the Economics of Health for All
- Pope Francis cites work of IIPP Director Mariana Mazzucato in latest book
- Leading medical innovation and access policy expert joins IIPP
- Data driven innovation expert Carol Sinclair joins IIPP
- IIPP applies an analytical lens to the COVID-19 crisis in a new series of public briefs
- IIPP launches a new global engagement series: Public purpose in the time of COVID-19
- IIPP selected to take part in Vatican COVID-19 Commission’s Economy Taskforce
- Living healthier or living longer? IIPP responds to the grand challenge of an ageing society
- Health innovation: creative approaches to improving access to medicines globally
- Labour Party draw on IIPP health innovation research for new pharma policy
- IIPP and the British Library partner on new 2019 lecture series, "Innovation and the Welfare State”
- The People's Prescription report calls for a transformation of the health innovation system
- Blogs
- by Henry Lishi Li
Funder
Contact
For more information on our work in health innovation policy, please utilise the email address tocontact usbelow:
Email:iipp-dircos@ucl.ac.uk