Global Health Policy

This is a joint post with Andrea Feigl.

Chronic diseases (heart disease, cancer, chronic respiratory diseases, diabetes, and the like) are the world’s leading cause of death, and greatest contributor to the global burden of disease. To some of us working in the health field, this is not news. To others, it comes as a surprise that chronic diseases kill more people in the developing world than HIV, malaria, and other infectious diseases combined (WHO).

Yet it was a surprise to us when the World Economic Forum described the global threat of chronic diseases to be more imminent and threatening than – yes, indeed – a global fiscal crisis.

Reuters recently reported that the global health community is beginning to explore potential insurance mechanisms and risk management products to finance pandemic flu vaccines for developing countries, in addition to a new vaccine stockpile supported by GSK and other manufacturers:

Intellectual property rights have been in the news quite a bit recently in light of the ongoing controversy over Novartis' pursuit of patent rights for its cancer drug Gleevec in India as well as Abbott's announcement that it will not register any new drugs in Thailand following the government's decision to iss