In partnership with the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Accelerate Clinical Innovation Initiative, the Milken Institute has identified health innovation gaps as well as disease and condition categories with the highest economic and social costs but low levels of R&D investment. The findings, detailed in this report, contribute to HHS’ strategic initiatives that aim to strengthen the nation’s health-care system, protect Americans, and improve overall economic and social well-being.

A disease’s cost and impact on society are challenging to assess. This Milken Institute analysis illustrates the benefit of new methods such as text mining and machine learning in merging and sorting information and argues for the necessary development of a metric that allows a systematic assessment of diseases’ cost, impact on society, and investment level.