While the response to the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed many of the fault lines in the biomedical innovation ecosystem that have slowed progress for decades, we have also shown ourselves capable of innovating in ways we perhaps did not think possible. FasterCures wants to ensure that the lessons of this crisis are not lost when the current urgency subsides—not only for combatting future infectious disease outbreaks but also for conducting every other aspect of biomedical R&D.

In the second half of 2020, informed by over three dozen interviews with key actors involved in the pandemic response from various sectors, we set out to capture the silver linings during the COVID-19 public health emergency, many of which will not remain in place unless collective action is taken. The resulting white paper, “Lessons Learned from COVID-19: Are There Silver Linings for Biomedical Innovation?” identified broad opportunities for focus in the areas of research collaboration, accelerating product development, clinical trial innovation, the collection and use of real-world data and evidence, and addressing racial and ethnic disparities in health care and research.

With input from a working group of external advisors, we built upon the themes that emerged from our white paper to identify specific near-term goals and actions that stakeholders can take to begin to leverage our collective learnings from COVID-19 for the benefit of the whole biomedical research ecosystem—and ultimately for patients suffering from a broad range of deadly and debilitating conditions.