Center for Global Health R&D Policy Assessment

Bangladesh, Barbados, Bolivia and Suriname proposed a Chagas Disease Prize Fund to the WHO Expert Working Group. The prize would be endowed with $250 million and incentivize product development and information sharing. The fund would reward the development of vaccines, diagnostics and medicines that improve health outcomes for populations at risk for Chagas disease. New medicines and vaccines would be eligible for final product prizes, whereas solutions for technical challenges would receive awards in a “best contributions” category. A portion of the “best contributions” funding would be set aside for developing country researchers, and the winners of any of the awards would have to license their intellectual property to a patent pool. In the interim when the prize money is unclaimed, the fund would invest the endowment in income-generating securities.