2026 Policy Priorities and Solutions - Flipbook - Page 15
Patient Centricity Across the Life Cycle of Medical Products
The Institute is committed to ensuring that patients’ priorities, perspectives, and data guide every stage of the medical
product life cycle. We work to build the capacity of patient organizations to actively engage in R&D, regulatory
review and approval, access determination, and post-marketing studies as equal partners. Additionally, we advocate
for robust communication between regulators and payers, such as the FDA and CMS, to align evidence-generation
pathways and outcomes, fostering a seamless connection between approval and access mechanisms for groundbreaking
medical innovations.
Prevention-First Health Care
We support advancing prevention-first health-care policy to improve health outcomes by reducing the burdens of
preventable conditions and improving treatment outcomes through vaccination, early screenings, and diagnosis. To reach
under-engaged populations, we advocate for reimbursement-focused policy changes to encourage data- and risk-based
outreach by nonphysician providers who have filled critical health-care gaps. We firmly support establishing a consistent
reimbursement policy for providers’ preventive counseling. The Milken Institute’s Project Prevent will bring together
cross-sector partners to address the urgent funding gap in preventive health care. The Initiative’s work will begin with
projects in the US and UK to research models for innovative funding and financing of prevention, as well as design a
pilot to test and scale real-world approaches to accelerate access and uptake.
Technological Advancement
We recognize that more than great ideas and adequate funding are necessary to bring medical innovations to market
and ensure patient access. It is essential to consider flexible, benefit-risk-based regulatory evaluation and early
communication between regulators and payers to remove unwarranted barriers to access to promising innovations
such as cell and gene therapies and gene editing therapeutics. Advanced screening and diagnostic technologies, such as
liquid biopsy, may facilitate early detection and intervention to prevent severe health outcomes. We facilitate dialogue
on the path forward for emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and advocate for greater investment and policy
changes to support prevention-focused interventions.
Mitigating the Threat of Antimicrobial Resistance
The Institute emphasizes the urgent need to address antimicrobial resistance (AMR), a growing threat that can
undermine advances in health, economic productivity, and global preparedness for future pandemics. Sustained public-,
philanthropic-, and private-sector coordination is needed to strengthen surveillance, connect fragmented data systems,
and deploy advanced technologies, such as AI-enabled drug discovery, rapid diagnostics, and new types of therapies,
to improve the prevention, detection, and treatment of resistant infections. It is also critical to establish economic
incentives to ensure continuous investment in innovation to address AMR.
MILKEN INSTITUTE
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