Center for Global Health R&D Policy Assessment

Hassan Masum is the co-author of the Center’s report “Open Source for Neglected Diseases: Magic Bullet or Mirage?”

This is the second in a series of interviews by Hassan Masum of leaders of collaborative health R&D programs.

Hassan Masum is the co-author of the Center’s report “Open Source for Neglected Diseases: Magic Bullet or Mirage?”

This is the first in a series of interviews by Hassan Masum of leaders of collaborative health R&D programs.

Today, in 2011, we are a far cry from the empty malaria medicine pipeline of the 1990s. There are two WHO-prequalified artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) available (artemether/lumefantrine and artesunate/amodiaquine) and two more due to be launched in 2012 (Eurartesim® [dihydroartemisinin/piperaquine] from sigma-tau Industrie Farmaceutiche Riunite and Medicines for Malaria Venture [MMV] and Pyramax® [pyronaridine/artesunate] from Shin-Poong Pharmaceuticals and MMV). Additionally, we now have a WHO-prequalified treatment for severe malaria at our disposal.

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.

In The Gridlock Economy, Columbia Law School professor Michael Heller explains how too much ownership wrecks markets, stops innovation, and costs lives. Ownership itself isn’t the problem, he writes; it’s that today’s increasingly complex economies get stuck in yesterday’s property rights management.

Access to medicines is a huge issue; it is estimated that 10 million lives could be saved annually if access to already existing drugs was improved. That’s the entire population of the D.C. metro area. Twice. Every year.

When a woman in Uganda has trouble accessing life-saving medications because they are too expensive for her to afford, it is easy to place blame on pharmaceutical firms in wealthy nations such as the United States.

Over the last several days, the WHO’s Consultative Expert Working Group on Group on Research and Development has been convening its second meeting in Geneva. (For more on the mandate and history of the CEWG on R&D see here and here.) On the agenda will no doubt be a review of new responses to its recent call for proposals.

This post first appeared December 1st, 2010 as a guest post on NextBillion.net a website and blog community of business leaders, social entrepreneurs, NGOs, policy makers and academics focusing on the connection between development and enterprise.