About Us
Project Overview
In late 2009, the Results for Development Institute launched a three year project to create a Center for Global Health R&D Policy Assessment. The Center aims to expand and improve the information used by governments, philanthropists and private investors in making decisions on new ways to drive global health R&D.
Hundreds of millions of people are affected by “diseases of the poor”, such as African sleeping sickness, Leishmaniasis, and Chagas disease, as well as better known killers like Malaria and Tuberculosis. There are far too few drugs, vaccines, and diagnostic tests to address these health challenges. Small or uncertain markets, along with other obstacles, have typically deterred investment in R&D for these diseases. Click here for related key readings.
Promising ideas are being put forward to close this gap, by creating new financing streams, incentives for scientists and biopharma companies, changes in intellectual property arrangements and in regulatory institutions and practices. Funders, policy-makers and other interested parties urgently require neutral and analytically sound assessments of these proposals.
To respond to this need, R4D is using grant support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to conduct rigorous independent reviews of innovative R&D policy proposals. These assessments will be based on extensive research and consultations with a wide range of stakeholders. R4D will widely disseminate its findings on-line and through other forums.