The Role for Medical Associations In Cross-Border Innovation
By Elizabeth Schumacher, JD
Introduction: The Global Reality of Healthcare
As a medical association entrepreneur, I’ve spent years navigating the tightrope between idealism and pragmatism. But here’s the truth no one in our field can afford to ignore: the future of healthcare isn’t just local, national, or even regional – it’s irrevocably global. The challenges we face today – antibiotic resistance, vaccine inequity, cuts in NIH research, climate driven pathogens – leap borders faster than a virus in a crowded airport. And if medical associations don’t lead the charge in fostering cross-border innovation, we’ll all be playing catch-up in a game where the stakes are human lives.
Medical associations have the unique vantage point—and responsibility—to become bridges between systems, translating research into action, policy into practice, and silos into shared solutions. If we don’t step up now, we risk not only falling behind but failing the very people we’re here to serve.
Global Threats Demand Unified Responses
Let’s start with the data and public health impacts.
Antibiotic resistance:
- Superbugs kill 1.27 million people annually (Lancet, 2022). By 2050, that number could hit 10 million.
Vaccine Inequity:
- During COVID-19, high-income nations hoarded 7x more doses per capita than low-income countries. Meanwhile, 81% of Africa’s population remains unboosted (WHO, 2023).
These aren’t “somewhere else” problems. A resistant bacteria in Bangalore will reach Boston in weeks. A vaccine gap in Kinshasa fuels variants that cripple care in Madrid. While visiting Amorgos, Greece recently, I learned that the island was protected from COVID a longwhile until visitors were allowed.
Antibiotic Resistance – A Playbook for Medical Associations To Stand Together
In 2017, the Global Antibiotic R&D Partnership (GARDP) – a coalition of governments, NGOs, and medical associations like the Infectious Diseases Society of America, scoured labs across 60 nations for a compound to combat drug-resistant gonorrhea. They found it in an Indian research facility: zoliflodacin, a shelved antibiotic.
By pooling funding and the thought leadership of its medical association leaders, GARDP fast-tracked trials in South Africa, Thailand, and the U.S. Today, zoliflodacin is nearing approval as the first new gonorrhea treatment in 30 years. This is how bringing together concentrated thought leadership of medical associations can make a huge public health impact – fairly quickly.
Medical association collaboration works for many reasons. Together they share risk so no single entity shoulders R&D costs. Together – regardless of the medical problem they are solving for – low and middle-income countries get affordable access.
Applying COVID Lessons to Future Public Health Challenges
While we have advanced past COVID, the lessons learned need to be applied for all public health challenges. When Moderna and Pfizer developed vaccines for COVID, medical associations helped expand access. COVAX, co-led by the World Medical Association (WMA) and Gavi, delivered 2 billion doses to 190 economies by early 2023. What can we learn from this for other medical breakthroughs – think about cross collaboration among medical specialty associations seeking treatments for cures and diseases.
The African Medical Association partnered with BioNTech to launch modular mRNA labs in Rwanda and Senegal during COVID. These suitcase-sized factories now produce vaccines for malaria and TB. Access to medicines and collaboration happens at the global, national, state, regional and local levels. What can we learn from COVID collaboration five years later?
Local production could save Africa $1.4 billion annually in vaccine imports (BMJ, 2023).
Communities involved in trials see 63% higher trust in health systems (NEJM, 2022). Medical associations can think in an entrepreneurial way.
Lead with Data, Not Diplomacy – Case Studies for Collaboration
As a medical entrepreneur, I know collaboration is messy. But here’s how associations can turn rhetoric into impact:
The European Society of Clinical Microbiology’s (ESCMID) resistance database links hospitals worldwide, letting a clinic in Mumbai flag a superbug strain found in Munich.
The Nigerian Medical Association now co-designs trials with Harvard, ensuring local priorities, like heat-stable vaccines for rural clinics, aren’t an afterthought. Medical associations advanced the Pandemic Accord, a WHO treaty to ensure equitable access to vaccines and drugs during crises.
The Bottom Line: Cross-Border Innovation Isn’t Optional
We’re at a crossroads. Medical associations can either cling to siloed, 20th-century models, or become architects of a borderless health ecosystem. The data is clear: collaboration isn’t charity. It’s survival.
To my fellow entrepreneurs and medical association leaders. Let’s not ask “What’s in it for us?” and start demanding, “What’s at stake for all?”
My Call to Action
Medical Associations: Audit your partnerships. Are you sharing power or just pamphlets?
Clinicians: Join global data networks. Your patient’s case could save lives 8,000 miles away.
The next pandemic – or superbug – won’t wait for us to agree. Let’s build bridges before the walls crumble.
Sources
1. Lancet (2022), Global Burden of Bacterial Antimicrobial Resistance.
2. WHO (2023), COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker.
3. BMJ (2023), Local Vaccine Production in Africa.
4. NEJM (2022), Community Trust in Clinical Trials.
