In this Newsletter

New FasterCures Team Member
Program Updates
Events and Convenings Recap
Recent Publications
Policy Updates
Upcoming Events

New FasterCures Team Member

Meet FasterCures Newest Director

FasterCures welcomed director Lisa Lewis in November 2024. Lewis will lead FasterCures’ health equity work. She has over 25 years of experience in biomedical research, spanning academia and the pharmaceutical industry. Before joining FasterCures, Lewis held leadership and consulting roles in clinical development, medical affairs, and clinical operations.

Program Updates

TRAIN Celebrates 20 Years

In 2005, FasterCures launched The Research Acceleration and Innovation Network (TRAIN), a program dedicated to empowering disease-focused patient organizations to adopt strategic and entrepreneurial approaches to funding medical research. For two decades, TRAIN has provided resources, tools, and initiatives to help patient organizations build their capacity to advance research efforts for the patient communities they serve. To commemorate TRAIN’s 20th anniversary, we are launching the TRAIN Impact Series. As part of the series, throughout 2025, we will share short articles on FasterCures’ LinkedIn account, written by TRAIN members and focused on the impact that TRAIN and patient organizations have had in driving research progress over the last two decades.

Preparing the US Health System for the Future of Cancer Care

FasterCures has launched a project to investigate how advances in cancer diagnostics could transform the future of cancer care. This project will explore the impact in the next five-plus years and evaluate whether the current US health-care system is prepared to accommodate the changes to care that may be enabled by new advances. The project will explore the broader implications for patients, health-care providers, industry stakeholders, payers, and the overall US health-care system.

Events and Convenings Recap

Future of Health Summit 2024

The Milken Institute Future of Health Summit brought together hundreds of leaders from across the public, nonprofit, private, and philanthropic sectors to discuss topics including biomedical research, public health, chronic disease, health equity, global health, and other pressing health issues focused on the theme Partnering for Better Health. FasterCures curated 10 public sessions. For detailed descriptions and recordings, please visit the session links below:

• A Glimpse Ahead: The Future of R&D
• All Hands on Deck: Partnering for Prevention
• Beyond Checkboxes: Elevating Diversity and Representativeness in Patient Engagement
• Data Sets That Address All Our Diversity
• Drafting the Blueprint for the Next Era of Patient Engagement
• Global Collaboration to Eradicate Women’s Cancers
• How Can Clinical Trials Keep Pace with Science?
• The Price of Health
• Regulatory Agenda for NextGen Biomedical Innovation
• Why Younger People Are Getting Cancer and What We Can Do About It

Recent Publications

FasterCures’ Report Highlights Provider-Led Patient Engagement

Patient engagement is essential in every part of the health-care system, from drug development to care delivery. Research consistently shows that effective patient engagement in care delivery leads to better health outcomes, reduces health-care costs, and improves patient satisfaction. FasterCures’ latest report, Patient Engagement in Care Delivery: Approaches by Health-Care Providers, explores successful, actionable, provider-led strategies to enhance patient engagement and address this critical challenge.

Milken Institute Report Provides Funding Solutions to Preventive Care

Around the world, chronic diseases are on the rise, resulting in rising health costs. Health systems are looking for ways to shift toward preventive care. In a new report, The Reinvention of Prevention: How to Fund and Finance a Pivot to a Prevention-First Healthcare System, published as part of the Milken Institute’s Project Prevent initiative, the Institute offers three proposals to finance preventive care, with a specific focus on the UK.

Policy Updates

FasterCures Provides Recommendations to FDA’s Patient Preference Information Guidance

FasterCures submitted a comment letter on the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) expanded guidance on Incorporating Voluntary Patient Preference Information over the Total Product Life Cycle of medical devices. Based on our expertise in accelerating biomedical innovation, we’ve provided actionable recommendations to enhance and expedite patient engagement in medtech research and development (R&D):

1. Clarify roles: Clearly define the roles of patients, caregivers, and patient organizations in planning and designing patient and public involvement studies to ensure accurate and meaningful data.
2. Expand education: Leverage FDA platforms to offer resources and education on patient engagement, focusing on small- to mid-sized medtech companies.
3. Empower stakeholders: Support patients, caregivers, and patient organizations as drivers of patient-centric engagement in medtech R&D and regulatory processes.

FasterCures Provides Recommendations to FDA’s Guidance on Integrating Clinical Trials into Routine Health Care

FasterCures responded to the FDA's Request for Comments on Integrating Randomized Controlled Trials for Drug and Biological Products Into Routine Clinical Practice. The guidance is a welcome step toward progress that the clinical research ecosystem has articulated for years but struggled to achieve—making rigorous research opportunities possible in routine clinical practice and, therefore, accessible to more patients. Drawing from years of experience engaging stakeholders advocating for community-based clinical research infrastructure, FasterCures shared recommendations for the agency’s consideration to strengthen the draft guidance and advance the integration of clinical research and trials in routine clinical practices.

Key recommendations include:

1. Aligning guidance documents related to integrating trials into clinical practice.
2. Requiring sponsors to design trials that integrate efficiently into routine care.
3. Clarifying how risk-informed quality management can improve provider and patient engagement.
4. Emphasizing the importance of person-centric research throughout the guidance.

Upcoming Events

• Global Conference | Los Angeles | May 4–7, 2025
• Asia Summit | Singapore | October 1–3, 2025
• Future of Health Summit | Washington, DC | November 4–6, 2025
• Middle East and Africa Summit | Abu Dhabi | December 2025