Andrew Briggs, Professor of Health Economics at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and Principal Health Economist at Occam Research, has won the 2024 Office of Health Economics (OHE) Innovation Policy Prize. He shares the prize with Thomas Pogge, Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs at Yale University. 

In 2024, the £40,000 Innovation Policy Prize focused on climate change and health and applicants were asked to address the following question: 

“How can economic policies incentivise environmentally sustainable innovation in the life sciences sector?”

Professor Briggs was awarded the prize for his submission ‘From Delaware to California: A Road Map For Incentivising Environmentally Sustainable Innovation’. The roadmap detailed a three-pronged approach to incentivising innovation in the life sciences sector:

1. To move from an ex-post to ex-ante incorporation of environmental externalities.
2. To use a more inclusive definition of the social cost of carbon in valuing externalities.
3. Create a fund based on health improvements generated by new products in a given jurisdiction to support inward investment in the life science industry in that jurisdiction as well as outward investment to support essential health services in lower income countries.