CHA announces new program to accelerate innovation in life sciences and health care

Announcing the launch of the first-ever tool in life sciences and health care to evaluate and rank new technologies and services via an end-user process. The Signature Award, developed based on requests from the pharmaceutical and biotech industry, follows best-in-class principles to better inform decision-makers and users, investors, and those who are trying to commercialize their science.

The Signature Award program provides technology holders and service providers, from the academic and private sectors, an opportunity to present their innovations to the people who matter – the subject matter experts (SMEs) who care most about new advances in their areas of specialty.

Programs like this one, from CHA, bridge the gap by providing a platform that allows vendors to reach the pertinent individuals within the industry, thereby making the technology evaluation process more accessible to innovators in life sciences and health care.

Participants apply to the Signature Award program as either a commercial or an academic technology or service provider. All applicants receive qualitative and quantitative feedback from the panel of SMEs.

Based on the feedback, each technology or service is placed into one of four categories defined by the strength of their value proposition and level of market readiness. Participants obtain valuable validation which can support their market penetration efforts and/or investor relations goals.

CHA general manager Dawn Van Dam noted that the industry owes much of its progress to new science and the innovative thinkers who dedicate their lives to finding new solutions.

"CHA is proud to be helping the scientific community realize the potential of these contributors by providing them with a platform to receive the industry and key opinion leader feedback that they need to increase their chances of commercial success," Dam added.

Nine years ago, CHA was asked by leaders in the biopharmaceutical industry to form the Technology Evaluation Consortium (TEC) and the Drug Safety Executive Council. The launch of the Signature Award program is a natural progression to accommodate the growth of the TEC and the resulting demand for evaluating the vast number of technologies and services available today in life sciences and health care.