Want to Win a Million Euros – Enter the European Commission’s Horizon Prize

April 18, 2016 – Misuse of antibiotics by healthcare providers has created an antibiotic resistance problem. In the United States each year 2 million are infected by bacteria that at some time in the past could be treated by an antibiotic but new strains have evolved that no longer respond to the drug. When this happens the first-line drugs are replaced by more expensive therapies. Often a patient gets so sick they require hospitalization. But worse then the burden of added healthcare costs is the number who die annually from diseases we once could cure. In the United States alone 23,000 deaths annually occur from antibiotic resistant infections, a human created problem.

Colds are viral infections. Rhinovirus is the biggest contributor. Coronavirus causes about 20% of colds. Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and Parainfluenza virus each are responsible for about 10%. Colds cause sore throats, make you sneeze and stuff up your nose, and you may experience post-nasal drip. But colds don’t cause your muscles to ache or produce fevers. If you get the former symptoms plus the latter than what you have is the flu and not a cold. Colds last 7 to 10 days before resolving. But they can allow opportunistic bacteria to produce secondary infections in the upper airways, sinuses and lungs. The common cold, however, should never be treated with an antibiotic. And for that matter neither should flu. For both of these common illnesses you treat the symptoms because they tend to run their course.

But doctors didn’t always think this way. When I was young and got a respiratory infection a course of antibiotics was always part of the treatment. Doctors didn’t know any better and thus our healthcare protocols created the problem that the Horizon Prize hopes to help fix.

That’s why the European Commission decided to offer a 1 million Euro prize to developers of “a rapid test that will allow healthcare providers to distinguish at the point of care between patients with upper respiratory tract infections that require antibiotics and those that can be treated safely without antibiotics.”

Called the Horizon Prize – Better use of antibiotics, the picking of upper respiratory tract infections as the first illness to tackle seems perfectly logical as a place to start. With most of us getting at least one cold a year a test to determine whether we are harboring something more lethal or something “common” makes sense.

The criteria for the test:

• It must be cheap.
• It must be rapid.
• It must be easy for health providers to do.
• It must be minimally invasive to patients.
• It must provide a high degree of accuracy to minimize false reads which could harm a patient.

Preventing unnecessary treatment using antibiotics means patients need not experience both the cost as well as the side effects of a course of pills that will have no impact on their infection.

The contest entry deadline is August 17, 2016. It is open to anyone or group in the European Union Member states. All entries should include a working device or demonstration method suitable for deployment at test sites. All entrants should be prepared to demonstrate their test. The winning entry will not only get the 1 million Euro prize, there is no restriction on turning the test into a commercial product where they can make even more money from it.

If you are a regular reader of this blog site you know that I have frequently referred to prizes as a powerful tool for solving challenges. The Horizon Prizes, of which this better use of antibiotics test is just one, represents this growing phenomenon.

Under the Horizon Prizes banner, the European Commission, has a number of other significant prizes available. These include:

• Food Scanner Prize – a 1 million Euro award for the individual or company that develops a mobile analyzer that quickly identifies the nutritional value, harmful ingredients and other characteristics of non-packaged or packaged foods to help people make better eating choices. The ultimate goal, to reduce incidents of obesity, adult onset diabetes, and other acquired problems derived from poor eating habits.
• Materials for Clean Air Prize – a 3 million Euros award to design a solution for reducing air pollution in urban centres, in particular particulate matter which contributes to reduced life expectancy, asthma, lung cancer, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, and premature death.
• Birth Day Prize – a 2 million Euros award for a solution that reduces maternal or newborn morbidity at birth reducing still births and other causes of death related to pregnancy and child birth.
• Social Innovation Prize – a 2 million Euros award chosen by public poll that focuses on improving the quality of life of an aging population.