Suppliers of drugs, vaccines, diagnostics and other critical medical technologies value opportunities to serve as good global citizens by providing access to life-saving health interventions in developing countries, while also exploring new markets and protecting their corporate interests. Through collaboration with international donors and technical agencies, it would be possible to produce better demand forecasts that could reduce and share risk in these markets, which in turn could support better business cases for investing in developing country products and making them available for those who need them most.
Supporting the funding, creation and widespread use of an infomediary that would generate better forecasts is both good for health and good for business. Specifically, individual suppliers could move towards better forecasts by providing public and proprietary data to a global health infomediary; in turn, they would be able to purchase information and baseline forecasts to inform their internal decisionmaking processes. Suppliers could also contribute by sharing their technical forecasting expertise with other global health stakeholders through forums, online tutorials, or other platforms.