ATS President Marc Moss says innovation is a critical component for clinicians.

Innovation fosters innovation. That simple connection inspired the first Respiratory Innovation Summit, which launched Saturday during the ATS 2018 International Conference. ATS President Marc Moss, MD, set the tone for the day-long event.

“It took us all of a nanosecond to realize we had to squeeze the Respiratory Innovation Summit into an already packed schedule here in San Diego,” Dr. Moss said. “Clinicians and clinical researchers and academicians and basic researchers are not taught to think in an entrepreneurial way. That is a huge gap in the development pipeline from idea to research to development to product launch.”

The summit was designed to bring together the newest and the best ideas from clinicians, academia, industry, venture capital, and regulators. ATS membership covers those areas and more.

“ATS members are not just researchers or clinicians,” Dr. Moss said. “They have seats on corporate advisory boards, they are CEOs and medical directors, and they play other key roles in the respiratory community.”

The Research Innovation Summit provided an insider’s look at the nuts and bolts of innovation. It takes more than a novel concept to bring an innovation to market. It takes grit, hard work, and plenty of help and advice to move from scribbles on a white board to a successful FDA marketing approval and commercial launch.

The summit focused on four product areas: biopharma, medical technology, drug delivery and diagnostics, and digital technology, plus a window into the regulatory world, innovation at the NIH, and venture capital.

The ATS annual meeting program already features multiple sessions devoted to innovation, Dr. Moss noted.

The BEAR Cage is a live, Shark Tank-style presentation on Monday from 1 to 3 p.m. Sponsored by the Drug/Device Discovery and Development Committee, the BEAR Cage gives three early career professionals the opportunity to pitch their innovative research proposals to a panel of translational science experts. The winner takes home a $5,000 cash prize and the kind of high profile recognition that can make or break new ideas.

The twisting, sometimes obscure path from off-the-wall concept to novel therapeutic agent is the focus of a Wednesday keynote. Theodore F. Reiss, MD, MBE, corporate vice president and head of I&I Clinical R&D at Celgene, will explore the inner workings of medical innovation in “On Pharma: The Complexity of Innovation” from 8:15 to 9 a.m.

“As an organization and as a community, we focus on scientific values,” Dr. Moss said. “Together, we can advance our common agenda in respiratory research and development.”