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Global Health Accelerator The Global Health Accelerator, a proposed mechanism to capitalize on the growing pool of innovation and local expertise in developing countries, would provide a suite of support services to biotechnology firms in emerging markets. In particular, the Accelerator would target firms undertaking research and product development for neglected disease technologies. The services would include business support services, partnering opportunities with Product Development Partnerships and Northern researchers and other forms of capacity building assistance. |
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Global Network of Regional R&D Networks African Network for Drugs and Diagnostics Innovation (ANDI) and Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR) call for an establishment of a global network of stakeholders engaged in global health R&D supported by a small central secretariat. The proponents envision the global network as a super network ('Network of networks' model) of existing sub-regional or national networks such as the recently established ANDI or a Latin American network under PAHO, etc. |
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Grand Challenges Program The Gates Foundation’s Grand Challenges Program, launched in partnership with the Wellcome Trust, NIH and the Canadian Institute of Health Research in 2003, is a family of grants aimed at solving 14 unresolved global health challenges. The program seeks unconventional solutions for complex problems, and is targeted toward those groups who may not otherwise participate in global health research. The challenges vary in scope, but many hold promise for neglected disease research. For example, Challenge 14 calls for a tool that can assess multiple pathogens/conditions at the point of care. |
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Grants for University-Biotech Collaboration Increasingly, grants are encouraging collaborative technology transfer research efforts between universities and biotechnology companies. The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Program provides up to $850,000 in early-stage R&D funding to small companies collaborating with researchers at universities and other research institutions. Small companies are able to retain the intellectual property rights to technologies that they develop under these programs. |
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Guarantees by Public, Bilateral or International Finance Institutions and Donor First Loss Funds Risk sharing may encourage private companies to grant loans for investments in R&D for neglected diseases. Subordinated equity, where the public investor reaps the returns only after private investors have recovered their costs, and loan guarantees, where the donor or public group cosigns a loan, remove some of the risk from private investors, opening up capital for long term research investments. |
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Health Impact Fund (HIF) The Health Impact Fund (HIF) aims to incentivize private sector participation in pharmaceutical R&D while keeping drug prices low, ensuring accessible health technologies. Its proponents argue that the current patent system for pharmaceuticals does not result in R&D for the diseases which have the highest global burdens. The HIF would offer product developers a 10 year payment from a fixed fund. The payment would be in proportion to the health impact of the product as compared to other products in the same treatment area. |
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Incubator for Companies Focused on Neglected Diseases Public, private and government stakeholders can help generate new enterprises by providing a suite of business support services to start up groups through established incubators. Business incubators specifically designed for global health could help nascent companies engaging in product development and research to enter the market and build capacity over time. |
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Indian Open Source Drug Discovery Initiative The Indian Open Source Drug Discovery (OSDD) Initiative is a Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) Team India Consortium with global partnership whose aim is to accelerate the development of new drugs to treat neglected tropical diseases. Based on other open source models used in information technology and biotechnology, this initiative would attract scientists and researchers across the world to collaborate and help aggregate the biological and genetic information available for the development of new drugs needed for neglected diseases. |
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Industry R&D Facilitation Fund (IRFF) The Industry R&D Facilitation Fund (IRFF) is a pooled funding mechanism that would provide secure funding to select Product Development Partnerships (PDPs). The PDPs would receive fixed shares from a pooled fund and must use the funding to expand contracts with the private sector. The funding intends to be flexible, allowing the PDPs to rely on their own expertise in managing their research portfolios. Having a source of predictable funding may also encourage biotechs and pharmaceutical companies to work with PDPs as there is a lesser risk of funding fluctuation. |
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Information Sharing for R&D Portfolios Both Product Development Partnerships (PDPs) and mainstream pharmaceutical companies engage in portfolio management to spread the risk of their research investments. For example, the research portfolio of the Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) was established with 21 projects at various R&D stages and includes mini-portfolios with GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, Genzyme and Sanofi-Aventis. Some PDPs allow biotechnology or pharmaceutical companies to handle the pharmacology of their projects while academic collaborators lend their research and expertise. |