The TB Commons Initiative
The current model of drug development is slow and inefficient. In a 2005 JAMA commentary, Andrew S. Grove, PhD, former Chairman of Intel, posits that the dominant cause is the slow rate of knowledge turns in the healthcare industry. "Knowledge turns are indicators of the time it takes for an experiment to proceed from hypothesis to results and then lead to a new hypothesis and a new result."
We agree.
Lilly Clinical Open Innovation believes that open, socially-driven models for scientific innovation can accelerate knowledge turns resulting in a faster development process for disease treatments. We are responding to this challenge, starting with the TBCommons.org website, which is designed to be an innovation network for generating knowledge about tuberculosis clinical trials.
Why a Commons?
Our initiative is to build a commons that facilitates open innovation. The word “commons” in the digital space means what it does in physical space: It is a shared, public place for collecting and disseminating resources for a community. This can include open data, expertise, software, and discourse.
The goal of the TB Commons initiative is to seed and grow an open clinical intelligence network. Our mental model for this focuses on four core community activities:
- Collect. Gather and convert available public clinical data to standard web-enabled formats
- Consume. Personalize views of data for exploration and understanding
- Curate. Generate new insights by linking, annotating, and organizing data in new ways
- Connect. Inspire community members to create networks of people and knowledge
Our first step was to create the ClinicalCollections application, allowing visitors to create and refine their own clinical trials collections to further their research activities. We've also created the AnswersForum for sharing questions, answers, and scientific insights. We look to you, the consumers, potential curators, and community builders to help us do the rest.
Why Lilly?
As an innovation-driven corporation, Eli Lilly and Company is committed to developing therapies for many of the world's unmet medical needs.
In fact, Lilly actively supports others' efforts in furthering TB research. The Lilly MDR-TB Partnership works internationally with pharmaceutical companies, healthcare provider organizations, and other groups interested in the prevention and treatment of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis. This partnership includes the International Council of Nurses, the Stop TB Partnership, and TB Alert, as well as more than ten other organizations.
Open Innovation. Your Innovation.
TBCommons.org is an open innovation in progress. You can become part of the process of reinventing invention. Build a clinical trials collection. Ask a question in the AnswersForum. Engage with others who are seeking to further TB research and stop this terrible disease.
You might also be interested in reading our white paper about why Lilly Clinical Open Innovation was called to bring open innovation to clinical research.