A first-pass newborn and early life screening (1stPANELS) model program

Abstract

Some children are born with diseases that doctors cannot diagnose from symptoms alone. Many congenital diseases are identified infrequently and lack accessible diagnostic tools from commercial markets and public healthcare systems. Due to low individual prevalence, most congenital diseases cannot benefit from economies of scale in biomedical, diagnostic, or drug development marketplaces. And so, most children born with congenital diseases go undiagnosed for too long and get treatment after irreversible damage has set in. This report introduces an alternative first-pass newborn and early life screening (1stPANELS) model program to revamp the depth and breadth of screening tools for congenital diseases. The 1stPANELS model underwrites new integrated, affordable, scalable, and pre-emptive first-tier screening services from medical facilities or over the counter through a “shark tank” style competition mechanism, and requires those new solutions be compatible with a dedicated, interoperable, and privacy-preserving data sharing network that renders early diagnoses and fast-tracks specialized healthcare services to patients. While congenital diseases remain underserved in healthcare, they also represent a substantial share of untapped commercial opportunities in the biomedical sector. Today, technology and market conditions are ripe to make screening tools for children with congenital diseases attainable by diagnostics developers and affordable to everyone.