Accelerating innovation in medicine: a wake-up call amidst the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Foreseeing a potential shortage of ventilators as the COVID-19 pandemic spread to Canada, in March 2020, Dr. Christopher Nguan, a urologist at the University of British Columbia (UBC), brought together a team to design a low-cost, open-source ventilator. This interdisciplinary group of volunteers formed the non-profit Collective Open Source Medical Innovations for COVID-19 (COSMIC), and won a national challenge award of CAD 100,000 from Roche Canada for further development of the ventilator. COSMIC has since grown to pursue additional low-cost innovations. A Bubble Helmet interface to deliver comfortable positive pressure ventilation has been approved by Health Canada for clinical trials and is in the process of scaling manufacturing for distribution. Similarly, Canadian anesthesiologists have been investigating devices to protect frontline healthcare workers, such as a face tent for aerosol evacuation and a negative pressure barrier for extubation. During the COVID-19 pandemic, medical innovations have been advancing at an accelerated pace. This has been in part driven by dire necessity and supported by an unprecedented level of collaboration across institutions, governments, industries, and regulatory agencies. Examples include rapid vaccine development and deployment, digital health technology adoption, and completion of international multicentre research trials. Thus, the COVID-19 crisis has given us an opportunity to re-examine many processes, including the optimal idea-toimplementation pathways for innovations. If research and regulation can be accelerated without compromising effectiveness and safety during a pandemic, could this be the post-pandemic model that leads us into the future?