Center for Global Health R&D Policy Assessment

Indian pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry’s face a rapidly evolving policy environment. Recent changes in the intellectual property regime, price controls, debates about compulsory licensing and other discussions of access to medicines place Indian firms squarely in the global eye. In the midst of this international attention, Indian firms have continued to be important players in providing low-cost access to medicines and other technologies needed around the world and are now focusing on expanding their reach to new products and regions.

EVENT: R&D to Meet the Health Needs of Developing Countries
A discussion on the WHO CEWG and its recent report on global health research and development

Monday, May 7, 2012
11:30 am – 2:00 pm
Results for Development Institute
1100 15th St., NW, Suite 400

Are you interested in how the development and introduction of new vaccines, drugs, diagnostics and related technologies can improve health outcomes? Do you have thoughts on how to drive innovation and global health R&D for the poor? The Center for Global Health Research and Development (R&D) Policy team is looking for talented writers and bloggers like you to contribute thought-provoking entries to healthresearchpolicy.org.

This is a joint post with Edith Han.

In the past few decades, there has been significant progress in malaria control. Coverage of bednets, spraying, and other prevention commodities has increased dramatically, but ensuring access to effective and affordable treatment has remained a challenge.

In thinking about neglected disease technologies, we often overlook the specialized needs of pediatric patients. Advocacy groups have done an excellent job in illuminating the gaps in appropriate pediatric ARVs, but what about other disease areas? And what are the obstacles in developing the right neglected disease technologies for children more broadly? After a little digging, a few important issues came forward.

New Technologies. There is undoubtedly a need for new neglected disease technologies for children, especially in diagnostics.

Tuesday morning, the Global Health Council and the American Enterprise Institute hosted a congressional briefing, “Substandard Medicines and the Developing World,” at The Hill to examine the impact of substandard medicines in the global supply chain and the impact of these products on global health. Smita Baruah, CEO of the Global Health Council, moderated the discussion and speakers included Rep. G.K.

Results for Development guest blogger Kaitlin Christenson describes the R4D event "The Role of Prizes in Global Health R&D," a webinar and meeting held October 20th in Washington DC. The event brought together over 30 participants from North America, Europe, and Africa, including U.S. government officials, academics, NGOs, and private companies and foundations, to discuss R4D’s preliminary results from its study on prizes.

Do prizes offer enough incentive to drive global health product development?

Over the past decade, the “global health” fanfare at our universities has grown to a fever pitch. Last year, 5 leading university presidents (Boston University, Brown, Duke, Johns Hopkins and the University of Washington) helped cement the Consortium of Universities for Global Health. Exciting as this is, as trainees in the neglected disease (ND) research space we have seen little change in the day-to-day realities of academic basic science research and graduate school culture.