>> The five criteria that applicants for the MSD health award must overcome are a very high hurdle.
That's a good thing. Because that guarantees what motivates me to have served on the jury for years and thus support the prize.

What do you find so extraordinary?
Firstly, the prize is relatively well-endowed, even though the annual funding of €100,000 is usually distributed among five or six winners. Nevertheless, it's a significant sum for the applicants. The five criteria mentioned above, as well as the work of the jury, ensure that this money is distributed fairly.

Please define "reasonable".
For me, sensible means: It benefits the patient. This usually doesn't involve a new method, procedure, or substance, but rather precisely what is very, very close to the goal of healthcare research: to ensure that every patient receives the best possible quality of care. So that people live longer, recover more quickly, or at least experience an improved quality of life.

Wouldn't that be the responsibility of the self-governing bodies and thus of the G-BA?
Many gaps in healthcare provision cannot be identified or adequately addressed by the healthcare systems defined by the G-BA (Federal Joint Committee). However, the social commitment of a few individuals can certainly help, as they repeatedly manage to fill real gaps in care with good ideas on a regional or even national level.

Who is applying for the health award?
To my great surprise, this prize attracts truly passionate individuals who want to make a difference on their own initiative and who, perhaps for the first time, dare to address a wider public through such a competition. There are some real surprise winners among them, and as a juror, it's truly enjoyable to see what emerges.

Were there any real surprises?
Certainly. I remember very well a project in Hamburg where an internal medicine ward in a small hospital was converted to be suitable for the care of dementia and geriatric patients. Or another project in Swabia and Bavaria that focused on the prevention of geriatric falls, not near geriatric wards, but where the affected people actually live: in the countryside. They went from village to village, visited the elderly residents, and encouraged them to engage with preventative measures. And they did this with the help of the Rural Women's Association, a health insurance company specifically for rural populations, the local singing club, and the sports club. Now that's what I call an original, but also very successful, because patient-centered, multi-faceted, and therefore highly effective prevention project with nationwide impact. I'm already curious to see what the jury will see this time.

Couldn't such ideas be given more space within the innovation fund?
Whether one calls the people applying for the health prize amateurs, true believers, entrepreneurs, outsiders or lateral thinkers, or perhaps better yet visionaries: their ideas have little to no chance in a system of evaluating public funds and their use in the field of research funding.

Why then?
Visionaries simply get lost in a funding system because, due to its democratic legitimacy, it must distribute either tax revenue or, as in the case of the innovation fund, funds raised from membership fees. This places an enormous responsibility on self-governing bodies to ensure that the money invested is spent in the best possible way, which requires sufficient evidence.

And what about the health award?
This involves a kind of altruistic venture capital investment. And that's a good thing, because it allows for the rewarding and support of exceptional ideas. The prize is therefore a kind of translation award, recognizing great ideas that can sustainably improve healthcare provision. Incidentally, this is also a very important criterion of the competition.

Is a pharmaceutical company acting altruistically?
This type of funding is largely pure altruism, but cleverly combined with an act of knowledge management. Every call for proposals, especially one so highly endowed, attracts numerous applications and thus a wealth of new information. Seen in this light, a research prize is an extremely cost-effective way to gain access not only to important information but also to the sources of innovative ideas. After all, nobody does anything purely for free; neither pharmaceutical companies nor health insurance companies do that.

Shouldn't the pharmaceutical industry be given far more opportunities to actively participate as a system partner?
Pharmaceutical companies have certainly done some less-than-ethical things in the past. However, on the other hand, the reputation of this sector is far worse than most of those working in it today deserve. Furthermore, any honest scientist will have to admit that they have collaborated quite reasonably and ethically with the pharmaceutical industry for decades – and, if at all, have very rarely been confronted with requests to withhold certain data. One simply mustn't give in to such demands, because lies usually have very short legs.