{"id":12,"date":"2015-09-09T19:52:34","date_gmt":"2015-09-09T19:52:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beyondpolio.org\/?p=12"},"modified":"2016-02-16T15:32:06","modified_gmt":"2016-02-16T15:32:06","slug":"example-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beyondpolio.org\/?p=12","title":{"rendered":"BeyondPolio and InnoCentive Announce Winners of First Innovation Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Crowdsourced Ideas from Five Solvers Identify Approaches to Making Delivery of Noninfectious Polio Vaccine Easier and More Affordable\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n

WALTHAM, Mass., Nov. 13, 2012 \/PRNewswire\/ \u2013\u00a0InnoCentive, Inc.<\/a>, the global leader in open innovation, crowdsourcing, and prize competitions, and\u00a0BeyondPolio<\/a>, an initiative of the\u00a0Jonas Salk Legacy Foundation<\/a>\u00a0and the investment firm\u00a0Spencer Trask<\/a>, today announced the solutions of its first Innovation Challenge which sought to identify ways to reduce the cost and facilitate the use of the inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV) in low- and middle-income countries. This Challenge achieved BeyondPolio\u2019s desired result of identifying promising solution paths that could help complete the eradication of polio at a global level, building on the success of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative which has used oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV) to nearly wipe out the virus in the remaining countries where it has been circulating.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the problems we face is that OPV continues to reintroduce potentially paralyzing polioviruses in areas where it is used, since the vaccine contains weakened viruses that can mutate back to a virulent form,\u201d said Dr. Peter Salk, President of the Jonas Salk Legacy Foundation. \u201cIPV, which is used in over 50 wealthier countries, does not have that problem, but it is currently unaffordable for widespread use in low- and middle-income countries.\u00a0 Reducing its cost and making it easier to apply will go a long way toward helping push poliovirus infection to extinction.\u201d<\/p>\n

This successful Ideation Challenge asked participants to identify promising approaches to significantly reducing the cost of using IPV in countries where it is currently unaffordable.\u00a0Over a two-month period, the Challenge attracted 432 Solvers and more than 50 solutions were submitted. Entries were reviewed by experts in the field of polio research and eradication, and by Dr. Peter Salk, son of Dr. Jonas Salk, the researcher who led the team that developed IPV in the early 1950s.<\/p>\n

Kevin Kimberlin, Chairman of Spencer Trask, added \u201cWe are delighted at the level of interest our initial Challenge elicited and the creative ideas proposed.\u00a0 InnoCentive\u2019s diverse Solver network has helped focus attention on several promising approaches to reducing the cost of IPV and developing affordable new noninfectious polio vaccines.\u201d<\/p>\n

The following Solvers or Solver teams were selected as winners and each received a $5,000 award. Two of the Solvers, Stephen Duren and Tiong Sun Chia, learned of the Challenge through the\u00a0Open Innovation Pavilion<\/a>\u00a0on nature.com, which is powered by InnoCentive.<\/p>\n