# Prizes for unpatentable surgical and radiotherapy techniques proven in trials

Source: https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-fund-technique-innovation-prize/  
OnCo record `idea-fund-technique-innovation-prize` (Idea). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

Nobody can patent a better way of operating or a shorter radiotherapy schedule, so nobody is rewarded for proving one. Prizes for technique improvements shown to work in trials would fill that gap.

## Summary

An endowed prize programme paying substantial awards (for example $5 to $20 million shared among the trial team and institutions) for randomised trials that demonstrate a surgical or radiotherapy technique change improving survival, recurrence or major toxicity by a pre-specified margin, with the requirement that the technique is freely described and teachable. Technique innovations such as total mesorectal excision, sentinel node biopsy and hypofractionation have saved more lives and money than most drugs and earned their originators nothing comparable; a prize corrects the reward asymmetry at the margin and attracts talent to technique research.

## Fields

- Kind: Idea
- Last checked: 2026-09-08
- Hypothesis: Announcing a standing technique prize increases the number of randomised trials of surgical and radiotherapy technique registered per year by at least a third within five years and the number of trainees entering technique-focused research.
- Rationale: Prizes reward outputs without requiring exclusivity, exactly the property needed for unpatentable innovations; the Lasker and Breakthrough prizes show that recognition and money shift prestige in science. Surgery and radiotherapy lack an equivalent focused on trial-proven technique.
- Proposed test: Endow the prize, publish criteria and track technique trial registrations and applicant characteristics over five years against the prior period.
- Maturity: speculative
- Actor: philanthropy

## Sources

- Bottleneck evidence (Surgery and radiotherapy cure most, get least): Sullivan et al., Global cancer surgery (Lancet Oncology Commission 2015): https://doi.org/10.1016/S1470-2045(15)00223-5

## Connected records

- ideas: [A billion-dollar prize for the first durable cure of a lethal metastatic cancer](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-fund-cure-prize/), [A permanently funded international network for randomised cancer surgery trials](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-fund-surgical-trials-network/), [Funded research pathways for surgeon-scientists and radiation oncologist-scientists](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-fund-surgeon-scientist-pathway/)
- technologies: [Robotic & minimally invasive surgery](https://onco.cc/technologies/robotic-surgery/), [SBRT / SABR (stereotactic radiotherapy)](https://onco.cc/technologies/sbrt/), [Sentinel lymph node biopsy](https://onco.cc/technologies/sentinel-node/)
- bottlenecks: [Incentives reward me-too drugs and marginal gains](https://onco.cc/bottlenecks/b-incentive-misalignment/), [Surgery and radiotherapy cure most, get least](https://onco.cc/bottlenecks/b-surgery-radiation-innovation/)
- key papers: [Global cancer surgery: delivering safe, affordable, and timely cancer surgery](https://onco.cc/key-papers/paper-sullivan-lancet-oncol/)

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