In the keynote address at a Town Hall Los Angeles luncheon event today, John C. Lechleiter, Ph.D., chairman and CEO of Eli Lilly and Company, said that in the current challenging economic times, sustaining our nation's edge in innovation and improving our focus on medical innovation's richest resource – people – is imperative to achieving prosperity and health in the coming decade. His speech focused on bioscience innovation, a sector in which Los Angeles boasts one of the largest concentrations of jobs in the country.
Lechleiter outlined three policies necessary to foster innovation:
- Broad improvement in science and math education in our grade schools and high schools,
- Immigration policies that encourage top scientists to choose to work in the United States, and
- Sustained funding in basic research.
Lechleiter said that talented people and their ideas are essential to driving innovation in the bioscience sector and creating new treatments and cures for patients. Medical innovation has led to longer life spans and enhanced livelihoods, with well-paid jobs. "We tend to think of innovation in terms of technology, science, and labs but innovation is essentially the application of human ingenuity to improve human life," said Lechleiter. "To fully appreciate innovation, we have to see and understand clearly its benefits for humankind."
Lechleiter explained that a broad understanding of math and science is essential for young people to participate in the high-tech economy of the future, and said the U.S. is falling short on science and math education:
- 15-year-old American students rank poorly against other countries
- Average scores for 12th graders in the sciences have declined, and
- The number of U.S. college students pursuing bachelor's degrees in science, technology, engineering and math is insufficient to meet future demands.
Lechleiter called for "a common effort as a society to develop whole new generations of Americans with knowledge and skills in math and science, a large pool from which great scientists and breakthrough ideas will emerge."
Turning to immigration policy, Lechleiter stated that the very best scientists are needed in pharmaceutical research. Currently, he said, many of the top candidates emerging from graduate schools in the U.S. are neither citizens nor permanent residents, and they run up against severe limits on the number of H1B visas.