Magazine’s 5th annual awards honor products, concepts, companies, policies and designs pursuing innovation for the good of society and the planet
NEW YORK, May 4, 2021 – The winners and finalists of Fast Company’s 2021 World Changing Ideas Awards were announced today, honoring the businesses, policies, projects and concepts that are actively engaged and deeply committed to pursuing innovation when it comes to solving health and climate crises, social injustice or economic inequality. Included among the finalists is one Memphis-based company with a technological solution to the decades-old problems of prescription waste and financial barriers for patients – RemediChain.
RemediChain co-founder Phil Baker first made headlines in 2018, when he successfully worked with Tennessee legislators to change a law to allow individuals to donate unused medication. Just two years later, the company launched its largest project to date, #FlipYourScrip, which aims to address the epidemic of wasted medication in the nation by inviting individuals to donate unused medications that can be redistributed to patients in need.
“Conservative estimates show 10 million prescriptions could be recycled every year and put the cost of prescription drug waste between $4 billion and $5 billion annually,” Baker said. “Consider this waste alongside the fact that millions of Americans go without lifesaving medications they need simply because they can’t afford them. This project is our effort to flip that script.”
Through #FlipYourScrip, RemediChain uses blockchain technology to retrieve unused, high-value medications from individual patients, pharmacies and other health care organizations and redistribute them to economically disadvantaged patients who are otherwise unable to afford them. The company’s innovative, lifesaving work led to its inclusion on this year’s list of Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas finalists in the health category.
Now in its fifth year, the World Changing Ideas Awards annually showcase 33 winners, more than 400 finalists and more than 800 honorable mentions – with Health and Wellness, AI and Data among the most popular categories. A panel of eminent Fast Company editors and reporters selected winners and finalists from a pool of more than 4,000 entries across transportation, education, food, politics, technology and more. This year, the magazine added several new categories, including Pandemic Response, Urban Design and Architecture. The 2021 awards feature entries from across the globe, from Brazil to Denmark to Vietnam.
Showcasing some of the world’s most inventive entrepreneurs and companies tackling exigent global challenges, Fast Company’s Summer 2021 issue (on newsstands May 10) highlights, among others, a lifesaving bassinet; the world’s largest carbon sink (thanks to carbon-eating concrete); 3D-printed schools; an at-home COVID-19 testing kit; a mobile voting app; and the world’s cleanest milk.
“Being recognized alongside the other amazing organizations on this list is surreal,” Baker said. “We knew this idea was world-changing for the patients we helped, but to be acknowledged for helping others and innovation – the cornerstones of our business – is a dream come true. We hope this recognition helps us reach the patients who need it most.”
“There is no question our society and planet are facing deeply troubling times. So, it’s important to recognize organizations that are using their ingenuity, impact, design, scalability and passion to solve these problems,” says Stephanie Mehta, editor-in-chief of Fast Company. “Our journalists, under the leadership of senior editor Morgan Clendaniel, have discovered some of the most groundbreaking projects that have launched since the start of 2020.”
About the World Changing Ideas Awards
World Changing Ideas is one of Fast Company’s major annual awards programs and is focused on social good, seeking to elevate finished products and brave concepts that make the world better. A panel of judges from across sectors choose winners, finalists, and honorable mentions based on feasibility and the potential for impact. With the goals of awarding ingenuity and fostering innovation, Fast Company draws attention to ideas with great potential and helps them expand their reach to inspire more people to start working on solving the problems that affect us all.
About RemediChain
We believe surplus medication should be managed as a resource. The RemediChain platform incentivizes community members to text a picture of their unused prescriptions. When a chemotherapy is identified, the platform generates a prescription donation form and a link that covers the shipping costs to our facility. The medications are inspected by a licensed pharmacist for safety before being added to inventory. Our virtual inventory is made available to a network of cancer centers across the nation connecting vulnerable patients with cancer treatment they would not receive by any other means.
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