[Random-bits] X PRIZE Foundation to Help Fight Tuberculosis Worldwide with Gates Foundation Support

[James Love]

http://www.xprize.org/foundation/press-release/x-prize-foundation-to-help-fight-tuberculosis-worldwide-with-gates-foundati

X PRIZE Foundation to Help Fight Tuberculosis Worldwide with Gates
Foundation Support

Gates Foundation providing grant to explore prize for innovative
breakthroughs in TB Diagnostics

October 16, 2008, Playa Vista, Calif. – The X PRIZE Foundation has
received a planning grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to
develop an X PRIZE for effective diagnosis of tuberculosis in the
developing world. The overall goal of the prize will be to promote
better management of the world’s second most lethal infectious disease.
Innovation will need to be tailored for the use in under-developed
regions, where over 60% of tuberculosis patients have access to only
primitive, peripheral health clinics with scarce resources.

The most commonly used diagnostic method (smear microscopy) used in
these under-developed regions fails to efficiently and accurately
diagnose tuberculosis. Patients must travel at great cost and time to
microscopy centers to receive insensitive tests requiring trained
technicians and repeated clinic visits. This current “state of the art”
has a sensitivity of approximately 40%. As a result of these challenges,
many people, especially those who have latent TB, are in the early
stages of infection, are co-infected with HIV, or suffer from
extrapulmonary TB, are under diagnosed and treated, resulting in
significant death, suffering, and the continued spread of disease.

“Tuberculosis is the second most deadly infectious disease in the world
and primarily afflicts developing countries with limited resources to
manage the disease and prevent its spread,” said Bard J. Geesaman MD
PhD, Executive Director of the X PRIZE Foundation Life Sciences Group.
“The great unmet need is effective tools and practices for determining
who is infected and needs to be treated. Because of the existing lack of
adequate financial incentives to develop such tests, a prize is an ideal
tool to incentivize innovation in this important area.”

Development and public health organizations, such as Médecins Sans
Frontières (MSF), Oxfam, and Results, have also recognized the power of
prizes to stimulate innovation of TB diagnostic tests in several
conventions of TB experts. And more recently, governments of TB-burdened
countries, including Bolivia and Barbados in conjunction with the World
Health Organization, have also proposed prizes for a rapid, low-cost
diagnostic test. “There are many complex issues in designing the TB
diagnostics prize. The X PRIZE Foundation will be bringing together
experts in the TB and public health community, with those in economics
and finance experts, in order to propose a prize that addresses this
vexing and important gap in medical technology,” said James Love,
Director of Knowledge Ecology International.
“The X PRIZE Foundation has a proven track record of spurring scientific
innovation,” said Peter Small, MD, Senior Program Officer for
tuberculosis at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “An X PRIZE for
tuberculosis diagnostics could someday help save many lives in the
world’s poorest countries.”

The need for a prize in tuberculosis diagnostics was first recognized by
the Advisory Council of the X PRIZE Foundation’s Life Sciences Group.
The idea was also independently explored by a classroom of students at
the X PRIZE Foundation’s X PRIZE Lab @ MIT. The Lab is a semester long
class that focused on Healthcare in the Developing World in the spring
of 2008. As part of an ongoing project, several students discussed a
need for a prize in this area, leading to combined discussions with the
Gates Foundation, which resulted in the grant.

ABOUT THE X PRIZE FOUNDATION
The X PRIZE Foundation is an educational nonprofit prize institute whose
mission is to create radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity.
In 2004, the Foundation captured the world’s attention when the Burt
Rutan-led team, backed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, built and
flew the world’s first private spaceship to win the $10 million Ansari X
PRIZE for suborbital spaceflight. The Foundation has since launched the
$10 million Archon X PRIZE for Genomics, the $30 million Google Lunar X
PRIZE, and the $10 million Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE. The
Foundation and its revolution partner BT Global Services are creating
prizes in Space and Ocean Exploration, Life Sciences, Energy &
Environment, Education and Global Development. The Foundation is widely
recognized as the leading model for fostering innovation through
competition. For more information, please visit www.xprize.org.

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-- 
James Love, Director, Knowledge Ecology International
http://www.keionline.org | mailto:james.love at keionline.org
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