“The Health and Human Services Department recently kicked off market research to inform an ambitious, multimillion-dollar effort to spur rapid breakthroughs against Lyme disease, a common tick-borne illness that can upend lives.”
“’With 30-plus years of the funding for Lyme and everything not going up much—but the cases increasing a lot—patients have looked at it as the government is ignoring them, and denying their suffering. And it’s just been really antagonistic,’ HHS Chief Data Scientist Kristen Honey told Nextgov this week. ‘Usually when there’s political or scientific controversy like that, it means we need more data. We need more information, more science—and science will be our way out…'”
“HHS’ Tick-Borne Disease Working Group published its first set of recommendations on addressing Lyme disease in 2018, which included engaging patients and the broader affected community and pushing for innovative technology and partnerships that were previously untapped in the realm. In response, the comprehensive initiative came to be…”
“Even early into that work, the urgent need for more federal funding and data-driven approaches to address the issue became very evident to those involved. But that wouldn’t come quick.”
“’People kept saying, ‘We don’t have time. Patients need solutions now—we needed solutions 10 years ago.’ They were suffering and struggling, so, you know, what can we do now? And that’s where the partnership idea came about,’ Honey explained. ‘We don’t need to wait for the congressional budgets to come down, for the priorities to realign with the increasing scope of the problem and scale the problem. Through partnerships, we can begin to work today.'”
“On the heels of that epiphany, HHS last year announced that it teamed up with the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation to launch the $25 million “LymeX” Innovation Accelerator. At the time, the department deemed it to be the ‘largest Lyme disease public-private partnership in history.”
“Through LymeX, officials intend to advance tick-borne disease innovation via three areas of focus. Those include stakeholder engagement and education and awareness.”
“Additionally, much of the resources will go to the LymeX Diagnostic “moonshot,” a series of grand-prize challenges HHS is launching this year to help catalyze rapid advancements and transform how the disease is uncovered…” Read the full article here.
Source: HHS Aims to Accelerate Technologies for Combatting Lyme Disease – By Brandi Vincent, March 5, 2021. Nextgov.
