The next major medical breakthroughs could come from long-approved, affordable drugs already on pharmacy shelves. Many medicines have multiple benefits, like aspirin, which was shown to help prevent heart attacks decades after it was first used as a pain reliever. However, once a drug’s patents expire, companies have little reason to invest in the costly studies needed to discover new uses. As a result, society has lost out on, perhaps, hundreds of new therapies.
The Market Shaping Accelerator (MSA) is working to change this. By designing funding models that reward successful generic drug repurposing efforts, MSA helps governments and foundations create incentives that spur researchers to explore overlooked drugs and develop them into effective new treatments.
A blog post discussing why NIH should consider using pull funding and why drug repurposing is a good initial target area.
An episode of Freakonomics featuring MSA staff discussing the repurposing incentive gap and potential policy options.
A 2-page memorandum outlining the repurposing incentive gap and policy options available to the US federal government for implementing a pull mechanism.
An eighteen-page white paper examining the repurposing incentive gap, evaluating policy options for implementing a pull mechanism, and detailing the design of such a mechanism.
A presentation on repurposing of generic drugs by Beth Boyer of the Duke-Margolis Institute for Health Policy, a finalist in the Market Shaping Accelerator Innovation Challenge.
Sarrin Chethik (schethik@marketshapingaccelerator.org), Senior Policy Analyst, Market Shaping Accelerator
Hassan Sayed (hsayed@marketshapingaccelerator.org), Postdoctoral Scholar, Market Shaping Accelerator
Sarrin is a Senior Policy Analyst at the Market Shaping Accelerator. He works on health and climate projects, including repurposing generic drugs, vaccines for pandemics, and climate-resilient crops.
Leah R. Rosenzweig is a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development and Director of the Market Shaping Accelerator (MSA). Leah’s research focuses on understanding the underlying factors that shape political and social behavior, with an interest in how these factors influence macro-level policy outcomes.
Hassan is a postdoctoral scholar at the Market Shaping Accelerator (MSA). His research studies the informational externalities of policymaking with applications to topics in applied theory and political economy.
Christopher Snyder is the Hyatt Professor in the Economics Department at Dartmouth College. His research and policy interests focus on incentivizing commercial markets to innovate to address global social problems such as pandemic preparedness and global warming.