News Release

HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson Releases Report on Promoting Medical Innovation

HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson today announced steps HHS can take to advance medical innovations and move products more quickly from the lab bench to the bedside.

The recommendations were outlined in a new report: "Moving Medical Innovations Forward -- New Initiatives from HHS." The report was the product of an HHS task force formed by Secretary Thompson last May to weigh new ideas and promote new solutions to encourage innovation in health care and to speed the development of effective new medical technologies.

"When it comes to making live-saving technology, drugs, and devices available to patients, there's no time to waste," Secretary Thompson said. "So we took a hard look at how we can better foster the innovation and research needed to bring new technologies and treatments forward quickly."

During the process of safety and efficacy review new technologies often run into unnecessary hurdles before they reach consumers. The task force examined ways to better coordinate this process across the department, to streamline the way HHS does business. By eliminating barriers, safe, effective medical technologies will be more readily available to Americans who could benefit from them.

The task force examined internal procedures at agencies across the department, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The report made several specific recommendations:

• First, the task force recommended that HHS enter into new or expanded Memoranda of Understanding to improve cooperation with other federal agencies that play an important role in medical technology development.

• Second, they recommended that HHS streamline its involvement in medical technology by creating a forum that will serve as a sounding board for investigators and manufacturers to communicate with HHS agencies.

• Third, they recommended supporting the ongoing development of standard formats for electronic clinical trial data.

• Fourth, they called for improved collaboration between CMS and FDA.

• And lastly, they supported new inter-agency scientific education and cross-training efforts to identify knowledge gaps among those serving in the technology transfer functions in HHS.

"Remarkable advances in science are leading to a whole host of innovative medical technologies, particularly promising drugs, devices, and biologics," Secretary Thompson said. "By implementing these recommendations, we ensure that we will rest on the achievements of even recent yesterdays."

Dr. Lester Crawford, Acting Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, chaired the Task Force. Other participants included CDC Director Julie Gerberding, CMS Administrator Mark McClellan, and NIH Director Elias Zerhouni.

The report is available at http://www.hhs.gov/reference/medicalinnovations.shtml.

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Note: All HHS press releases, fact sheets and other press materials are available at http://www.hhs.gov/news.

Last revised: January 13, 2005