From 2015–2020, the Harvard Business School Kraft Precision Medicine Accelerator (KPMA) worked to create business solutions which would help solve cancer nonprofits’ biggest issues. This important work began with one question: How to bring more treatments to the people who need them? After Myra Kraft died in 2011 of ovarian cancer, the Kraft Family Foundation sought to find an answer to this question. They spoke with a number of cure-seeking organizations, wondering why their efforts weren’t leading to more advancements. The issue they discovered was that the structure of the cure ecosystem wasn’t built around business efficiencies. Organizations, which are often solely research-focused, could achieve so much more by building and implementing comprehensive business plans that keep pace with cutting-edge science. This is why the Kraft Foundation joined with Harvard Business School to work towards finding a solution to these problems, and thus the KPMA was born.

The KPMA investigated the cure ecosystem, identifying and addressing the most crucial obstacles in developing medicines. It pulled in more than 300 business leaders from different disease states, industries, and networks to analyze what was working well in the generation of cures—and what wasn’t. This new community that was formed found new ways to engage patients, leverage data, identify best-in-class clinical trial models, and innovate funding methods.

The KPMA identified four key areas that needed to be addressed: engaging patients, using data and analytics effectively, designing successful clinical trials, and developing sound investment models.

• 1. Patient Engagement: Organizations can learn so much from patients, but getting them involved requires encouragement, building trust, and growing awareness.
  

  Learn more:

  Patient Engagement: Five Basics

  Patient Engagement Through Value

  Patient Registries

  
  
• 2. Data & Analytics: Aggregating and standardizing data can help accelerate clinical trials, impact clinical pathways, and solve some of the biggest challenges in medicine.
  

  Learn more:

  Landscapes: Data and AI

  Data Sustainability

  Listen to the Podcast

  
  
• 3. Clinical Trials: The KPMA developed methods to make clinical trials run as efficiently as possible so patients can get the treatments they need.
  

  Learn more:

  Landscape: Innovative Trials

  The Pharma Nonprofit Sweet Spot

  
  
• 4. Investment and Venture:Innovating investment models can help to minimize risk, redefine value, and align incentives.
  

  Learn more:

  Convening the Investment Ecosystem

  New Approaches to Philanthropic Funding

Today, there are more than 20,000 different cure-seeking organizations, each one operating under their own set of rules, guidelines, and best practices. Ultimately, they all have the same goal: Getting better treatments to patients.

The KPMA leveraged their discoveries to develop a collection of tools, case studies, and resources that other cure-seeking organizations can use to help build their own business plan to move medical advances forward.

By following these steps and aiming for this quality of deliverables, organizations can build their own strategy.

1. Assess your readiness
2. Develop the landscape
3. Interview the key opinion leaders
4. Write the strategic plan
5. Write the operational plan
6. Continually communicate

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Learn more about the KPMA and what it accomplished by exploring the resources below.

KPMA Resources