Pill Protect QuickFire Challenge Designing for Medication Safety

To inspire innovators to tackle this safety risk, Johnson & Johnson Innovation together with Johnson & Johnson’s Office of the Chief Medical Officer (OCMO) and Scientific Education and Patient Advocacy (SEPA), in coordination with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention PROTECT Initiative, is proud to introduce the Pill Protect QuickFire Challenge: Designing for Medication Safety.

Keeping kids safe at home is more important than ever – including safely storing medicines. Especially, as many families are living a new normal with children spending more time at home due to the pandemic.

Every hour in the United States, 5 children under age 6 are rushed to emergency departments for medication poisonings, many due to unsafe storage practices. There has been a 142% increase in prescribed medications over the past two decades. At the same time, an aging population and drastic increase in three-generation households, kids living with their parents and grandparents, are likely contributing to approximately 200,000 children visiting emergency departments each year due to adverse drug events.

Pill minders must be accessible and user-friendly, especially when taking into consideration challenges such as arthritic patients, while at the same time safeguarding their contents, as much as possible, from vulnerable children.

An analysis of current pill minders revealed that none were designated as child resistant and the majority did not have important safety information including that the device should be stored out of the reach of children.

We invite visionaries to submit ideas aiming to prevent or reduce the accidental accessing by children of medications in pill minders, pill organizers or pill dispensers.

The innovator(s) with the best idea, potential technology, or potential solution will receive up to $100,000 in grant funding, access to the global JLABS network and mentorship from experts at the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies.

We encourage innovators to submit potentially ground-breaking ideas in:

Enhanced technologies and designs aimed to protect children from accessing medicine which do not compromise the appropriate accessibility by adults.
Redesigned pill minders with the potential to improve medication storage, proper usage, and encourage patient compliance
Priority will be given to potential innovations backed by data. Applications that clearly describe a concept or path forward to achieve these goals will also be considered during evaluation. Please keep in mind that no idea is too big or too early for consideration.

Application process
The submitted potential solution must either be pioneering or evidence based.

Submitted ideas must meet at least three of the below criteria:

Actionable – is the project achievable?
Measurable in terms of health impact
Filling a current data gap
Proven sustainability or strong rationale for a sustainable business model
Scalable
Why this challenge matters to us
At Johnson & Johnson Innovation, we believe a good idea can come from anywhere, and it’s our goal to find innovative health solutions that aim to improve health around the world. We know that despite parents’ and caregivers’ best efforts at preventing accidental unsupervised ingestions they occur and children self-accessing pill minders, pill organizers and pill dispensers is a well-documented root cause. Working together,