the kraft precision medicine accelerator at harvard business … · 2020. 8. 19. · our philosophy...

thejournalofprecisionmedicine.comJournal of Precision Medicine | Volume 6 | Issue 2 | June 2020 Journal of Precision Medicine | Volume 6 | Issue 2 | June 2020@journprecmed

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A New Playbook for Cure-Seeking Nonprofits

by Kathy Giusti and Richard Hamermesh

Over our first few years we worked

with a diverse group of 300

business and nonprofit experts to

develop knowledge, insights, and

best practices about accelerating the work of

disease-focused organizations. In a relatively

short period, we brought together these leading

thinkers from multiple organizations and

disciplines who shared valuable insights and

information with early movers at cure-seeking

organizations focused on multiple diseases.

Our next step is to disseminate our learnings

more broadly while democratizing what we

have learned as a playbook for the cure-seeking

ecosystem—particularly the next generation of

innovative nonprofit leaders who want to rapidly

accelerate bringing cures to patients.

What follows is a recap of why the Kraft

Precision Medicine Accelerator was founded,

a brief summary of what we’ve done, and a

preview of our exciting path forward.

The Kraft Precision Medicine Accelerator at Harvard Business School is democratizing what it has learned to help thousands of disease-focused nonprofits generate cures

The Kraft Precision Medicine Accelerator is now embarking on the next stage of our journey.

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thejournalofprecisionmedicine.comJournal of Precision Medicine | Volume 6 | Issue 2 | June 2020

The Challenge and SolutionAs we described in our previous article1 in the

Journal of Precision Medicine, the idea for the

Kraft Precision Medicine Accelerator came

from the tragic, frustrating experiences of the

Kraft family—experiences that are unfortunately

shared by far too many families.

When Myra Kraft, wife of Robert and mother

of Jonathan Kraft, was diagnosed with ovarian

cancer, the Krafts also learned of amazing

scientific discoveries, but also experienced

a broken, fragmented healthcare system

where breakthroughs do not get to patients

fast enough and where collaboration among

different stakeholders is often lacking.

Realizing that many of the challenges

hindering the advancement of precision

medicine are business challenges, the Krafts

donated $20 million to Harvard Business

School to establish the Kraft Precision Medicine

Accelerator. Their goals were to catalyze

breakthrough business models and to bring

about disruptive, systematic changes to move

discoveries from the lab to patients much faster.

Learning from Early MoversThe mission of the Kraft Accelerator is not

to bring one specific drug to market faster

but rather to act as a catalyst in accelerating

the entire precision medicine ecosystem to

generate cures.

Our philosophy was to tap our Rolodexes,

email directories, and social media colleagues

and use the convening power of Harvard

Business School to identify and work with

innovative first and second movers in the world

of precision medicine. This included over 300

leading influencers and thinkers from across the

entire healthcare system as well as investors,

patient and consumer engagement experts,

data management gurus, and leaders from

forward-thinking nonprofits and foundations.

In bringing together these diverse thought

leaders and early movers, we sought to

understand their challenges and the keys to

their success, and then capture and convey the

insights they gleaned to the “next movers”—

creating a ripple effect across the ecosystem to

accelerate progress and produce cures.

Starting with a blank sheet of paper and a

goal of accelerating cures, we focused our initial

efforts on four workstreams where we believed

we could have the greatest impact. We brought

together leaders for each workstream who

believed in our mission and were committed to

share their time and best thinking.

The four workstreams and some of the

participating organizations in each were:

1. Direct-to-Patient (DTP). ◆ Goal: Identify best practices for cure-seeking

organizations to engage patients and share

their data for research.

◆ Participants: Consumer experts from

organizations like Marriott, Salesforce,

Peloton, Reebok, and the Boston Red

Sox, along with leaders from nonprofit

organizations such as the Prostate Cancer

Foundation, LUNGevity, the Metastatic

Breast Cancer Alliance, All of Us, and Verily.

2. Data, Analytics, and AI. ◆ Goal: Review best practices for aggregating

and standardizing data, and the landscape

for organizations involved in data.

◆ Participants: Data experts from

organizations like IQVIA and Novartis, as well

Home page of Kraft Precision Medicine Accelerator’s new online Playbook and website

A Kraft Accelerator Workstream convening including Lynn Vos from MDA

The Kraft Accelerator’s “Use the Tools”

Expanding precision medicine

We believe that medicine will become more precise. However, medicine today is generally based on a “one-size-fits-all” practice, and where targeted therapies are possible, it is impractical to scale.

The goal of expanding precision medicine is to provide the right treatment at the right time for every patient. Tailoring treatment starts with a highly-specific diagnosis without unwarranted variation. Based on data integrated from existing

sources, adding genomics and radiomics enables a holistic understanding of the individual. These unique characteristics steer the personalization of treatment. A precise understanding of a patient’s condition is the most effective approach to deliver outcomes favorable to all stakeholders.

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as leaders from nonprofits focused on data,

including the Multiple Myeloma Research

Foundation (MMRF), the Pancreatic

Cancer Action Network (PanCAN), and the

Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA).

3. Clinical Trials. ◆ Goal: Improve and accelerate clinical trials.

◆ Participants: Experts on clinical trials from

GBM Agile, MyDRUG (a platform trial

launched by the MMRF), and Precision

Promise (PanCAN’s adaptive clinical trial

platform) as well as Beat AML, I-SPY 2,

Lung-MAP, and NCI-Match.

4. Investment & Venture. ◆ Goal: Identify innovative funding models that

are accelerating cures.

◆ Participants: Executives from leading financial

organizations such as Merrill Lynch and

Goldman Sachs, venture capital firm MPM,

the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation

(JDRF) with its T1D Fund (focused on

diabetes), and the Dementia Discovery Fund.

Through multiple convenings of these

workstreams and through executive

education sessions on the Harvard Business

School campus, the Kraft Precision Medicine

Accelerator facilitated connections among

these 300 early movers and aggregated

significant insights. These organizations

are now applying what they learned during

these interactions.

Broadly Disseminating What We’ve LearnedWe are extremely proud of how the Kraft

Precision Medicine Accelerator has evolved

and what we have accomplished. We decided

that now is the right time to build on these

accomplishments and disseminate these

learnings more broadly beyond the initial

300 early movers by democratizing business

insights with the larger cure-seeking community,

particularly those nonprofit leaders who are

hungry for additional resources and guidance.

Our sights are now set on helping accelerate

the work of the roughly 22,000 disease-focused

nonprofits in the United States.

We started by leveraging what we learned

publishing numerous articles in business

publications such as the Harvard Business

Review, the Wall Street Journal, Fortune, and

Forbes, as well as mainstream publications

like Time, the Boston Globe, and HuffPost.

We wrote nine case studies along with several

white papers on specific topics. A few examples

of these items are cited in the Reference

section, along with more articles, case studies,

white papers, and publications on the Kraft

Accelerator website.

As the Accelerator has become more widely

known, we have been inundated with inquiries

from nonprofit leaders and board members

who want to take their organization to the next

level. Just as rewarding have been contacts from

passionate individuals who want to jumpstart

the process of founding a new nonprofit

focused on curing a specific disease. These

inquiries have an urgency and a desire not to

reinvent the wheel; they want to take advantage

of what we have learned so they can go further,

faster in driving cures. Also, while our initial focus

was accelerating precision medicine to treat and

cure cancers, we have seen patterns leading us

to realize that our work is broadly applicable for

all diseases, far beyond cancer.

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Jonathan Kraft, Harvard Business School Dean Nitin Nohria, Robert Kraft, and Kathy Giusti

A Kraft Accelerator Executive Education gathering at Harvard Business School


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Our Next Phase = Igniting the Next MoversCure-seeking organizations are often founded

and led by passionate individuals who see

a disease lacking treatments and cures.

They want to make a difference in getting

better treatments to patients faster. But these

organizations frequently lack the business

strategies and plans they need to successfully

move forward. Nonprofit founders aren’t sure

of the best, most effective ways to develop

these strategies and don’t have the time to

start from scratch in figuring out what works

and what doesn’t. Some may be unaware that

best practices exist for starting a cure-seeking

nonprofit or where to find relevant resources.

This is where the Kraft Accelerator can add

significant value by leveraging our accumulated

learning. Our message to nonprofit leaders who

aspire to take their organizations to the next

level: “If you’ve got the passion, we’ve got

the playbook.”

The Kraft Accelerator’s newly launched

website-based Playbook is a collection of

frameworks, tools, case studies, and resources—

developed based on the insights of experts and

early movers—to help nonprofits develop their

strategy and game plan. It is a launching pad for

the next generation of cure-seeking nonprofits.

This Playbook is a resource to help

organizations assess the readiness of their

leadership, strategy, and funding. For those

organizations ready and committed to

becoming game-changing “next movers,” the

Kraft Accelerator Playbook will be the valuable

resource organizations need to accelerate their

progress. The Kraft Accelerator Playbook can be

found at www.hbs.edu/kraft-accelerator.

This site consists of:

◆ Our Story. Meet and learn from the diverse

group of 300 first movers who contributed

their insights and experiences.

◆ Get Inspired. Harvard Business Review

is publishing a series of articles on the

key success factors for accelerating

cures—leadership, strategy,2 and funding.

These HBR articles raise questions that

must be answered about an organization’s

readiness to proceed and the path the

organization will take.

◆ Tools. A suite of six hands-on tools to

guide nonprofit leaders through strategy

development. Having a strategy is essential

but the process can be intimidating.

These tools, which have been developed,

reviewed, and tested by industry leaders,

simplify the process. A real-world case study

of how the Multiple Myeloma Research

Foundation used these tools shows

nonprofits, “You can do it too.”

◆ Learn from the Leaders. A series of

white papers from each workstream pulls

together valuable, real-world lessons of the

past few years. Topics include engaging

patients in registries, launching platform

trials, recouping data costs, and initiating an

impact investment fund.

◆ HBS Cases. These cases, used in Harvard

Business School’s executive education

courses, highlight strategies successful

nonprofits have used to overcome

their most significant financial and

operational challenges.

Our interactions with nonprofits and initial

research have confirmed there is a significant

appetite for the tools and resources in this

Playbook, particularly among nonprofit leaders

and board members who want to move forward

extremely quickly and don’t want to start

from scratch.

Fulfilling Harvard Business School’s MissionIt is our hope that the Playbook will be used

by nonprofits, board members, healthcare

leaders, industry funders, and others to

improve the running of current disease-focused

organizations and to make it faster and easier to

start and scale new organizations.

How cure-seeking foundations can benefi t from the Kraft Accelerator’s Playbook “We want to move really fast to � nd a cure and don’t want to reinvent the wheel.”In 2016, Nicola Mendelsohn, a Facebook VP, was diagnosed with follicular lymphoma (FL), a blood cancer with no cure. Th e last breakthrough related to FL was in 1975, with little progress since. Mendelsohn set out to change that. In 2019, she founded the Follicular Lymphoma Foundation (FLF) to cure FL. To move fast, she wants FLF to learn from what others have done, avoid making the same mistakes, and catalyze the ecosystem to quickly produce treatments.

Th is is where the Kraft Accelerator at HBS comes in. In developing FLF’s strategy and plans, Mendelsohn has taken advantage of tools, resources, and expertise from the Kraft Accelerator, particularly how a foundation (MMRF) develops its strategy, as well as lessons about starting a registry and using various funding models. She sees the Kraft Accelerator’s collective knowledge and accumulated expertise, and the various tools that are available, as valuable for anyone starting a cure-seeking foundation or seeking to accelerate progress.

“By learning what has worked and what hasn’t, we hope to accelerate our path to treatments. What the Kraft Accelerator and HBS have put together is valuable to FLF and to any foundation that is just getting started and wanting to ramp up incredibly quickly to fi nd cures. We are most appreciative for access to this wealth of resources and expertise.”

Nicola Mendelsohn, founder, Follicular Lymphoma Foundation; VP, EMEA, Facebook

“If you’ve got the passion, we’ve got the playbook”


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References1. How Harvard Business School is Accelerating Precision Medicine,

Journal of Precision Medicine, March 2020, https://www.thejournalofprecisionmedicine.com/march-2020/.

2. How Medical Nonprofi ts Set Winning Strategy, March 06, 2020, https://hbr.org/2020/03/how-medical-nonprofi ts-set-winning-strategy.

3. An Urgent Mission to Speed Progress Against Cancer, May 25, 2018, https://www.wsj.com/articles/an-urgent-mission-to-speed-progress-against-cancer-1527260815.

4. Today’s Healthcare Consumer: Driving Engagement & Delivering Value, May 15, 2019, https://www.hbs.edu/kraft -accelerator/Documents/HBS-Kraft -Precision-Medicine-Accelerator-Direct-to-Patient-Key-Th emes.pdf.

5. Under the Datascope, accessed January 28, 2020, https://www.hbs.edu/kraft -accelerator/podcast/Pages/default.aspx.

6. Master Protocols in Oncology: A Review of the Landscape, March 9, 2018, http://www.appliedclinicaltrialsonline.com/master-protocols-oncology-review-landscape.

7. Th e Time Is Now: Accelerating Precision Medicine Th rough Investment, February 28, 2019, https://www.hbs.edu/kraft -accelerator/Documents/HBS%20Kraft %20Precision%20Medicine%20Accelerator%202019%20Key%20Th emes.pdf.

8. Impact Investing: A New Way to Fund Cures for Cancer, February 25, 2019, https://www.statnews.com/2019/02/25/impact-investing-fund-cancer-cures/.

9. In Quest for Cures, Medical Nonprofi ts Seek to Wield Th eir Own Venture Funding Power, May 31, 2019, http://webreprints.djreprints.com/56422.html.

10. 4 Important Steps to Take Aft er a Cancer Diagnosis, February 12, 2019, https://time.com/5525656/cancer-diagnosis-what-to-do/.

11. What Cancer Researchers Can Learn from Direct-to-Consumer Companies, January 12, 2017, https://hbr.org/2017/01/what-cancer-researchers-can-learn-from-direct-to-consumer-companies.

12. A New Approach to Safely Sharing Cancer Patients’ Data, June 21, 2017, https://hbr.org/2017/06/a-new-approach-to-safely-sharing-cancer-patients-data.

13. Impact Investing: A New Way to Fund Cures for Cancer, February 25, 2019, https://www.statnews.com/2019/02/25/impact-investing-fund-cancer-cures/.

14. What Precision Medicine Can Learn From the NFL, April 13, 2017, https://www.forbes.com/sites/sciencebiz/2017/04/13/what-precision-medicine-can-learn-from-the-nfl /#2764af915ada.

15. Exploring the Frontiers of Data and Analytics for Precision Medicine, October 25, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBcDd3bywZg&list=PLPndSdqaaC1b60gctzaleOH3T5KWquGy3.

16. Intermountain Healthcare: Pursuing Precision Medicine, Harvard Business School Case Study, September 2017, https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=53323.

17. Dementia Discovery Fund, Harvard Business School Case Study, September 2019, https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=56846.

18. Breakthroughs at Blueprint Medicines, Harvard Business School Case Study, October 2019.

Kathy Giusti, Faculty Co-Chair of the Kraft Precision Medicine Accelerator and the Henry & Allison McCance Family Senior Fellow at Harvard Business School. Kathy established the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation (MMRF) in 1998, shortly aft er being diagnosed with the disease. She has led MMRF in establishing

collaborative research models in tissue banking, genomics, clinical trials, and data sharing. Recognized as a leader in precision medicine, Kathy has been named by Time as one of the world’s 100 most infl uential people and by Fortune as one of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders.

Richard Hamermesh, Baker Foundation Professor of Management Practice, Faculty Co-Chair of the Kraft Precision Medicine Accelerator, and Harvard Senior Fellow, is also a cancer survivor. Richard was the founding Faculty Chair of the HBS Healthcare Initiative. Richard is an active investor and entrepreneur, having participated

as a principal, director, and investor in the founding and early stages of over 20 organizations. Richard is the author or co-author of fi ve books and has published numerous articles and case studies.

Additional InformationFor more information about the Kraft Precision Medicine Accelerator, contact kraft [email protected] or call 1.617.495.1782.

SAVE THE DATESMarch 31 – April 1, 2021www.PersonalizedMedicineConference.org

From an Enterprise to an Era

THE 16TH ANNUAL

PERSONALIZED MEDICINE CONFERENCE

The 16th Annual Personalized Medicine Conference at Harvard Medical School will explore the science, business, and policy issues facing personalized medicine.

The mission of Harvard Business School has

always been to generate and communicate

knowledge to shape leaders who will make a

difference in the world. Based on the Krafts’

vision and commitment, we are excited to have

created this Playbook, to begin democratizing

what we have learned, and to broadly catalyze

change throughout the cure-seeking ecosystem.

Collectively, these actions are consistent

with fulfilling HBS’s mission of making a

difference in the world—now in the era of

precision medicine. JOPM