Chapter at a glance
- The development of a new medicine
depends on the work of scientists
based in academic, government
and private research institutions,
focusing on challenges that range from
understanding a particular type of
immune response to determining what
type of packaging will maintain the
viability of heat-sensitive products.
- Commercial investment is
complemented in essential ways by
public and philanthropic funding, which
is especially important for the basic
science and early-stage research on
which pharmaceutical development
depends. But the most expensive, later
stages of vaccine development'such
as clinical testing, regulatory approval,
production and distribution?are
mainly the result of private sector
investment.
- For drugs and vaccines that are
produced for populations in affluent
countries, the single largest source
of funding for R&D is commercial
investment.
- R&D on products that address health
problems in developing countries
receives neither the level nor the
type of funding that health problems
in developed countries receive. Of
more than $100 billion spent on health
R&D across the world, only about $6
billion is spent each year on diseases
of developing countries, almost all of
which is from public and philanthropic
sources. There is little commercial
investment because the market is
not large enough to provide financial
returns to cover the costs.
- A number of different approaches
can be used to make investments in
neglected diseases more attractive?
and some have already been tried in a
limited context and have demonstrated
a positive effect.
- An advance market commitment would
have important benefits:
- First, it would mobilize additional
resources, particularly for
the clinical testing phases of
development.
- Second, strong market incentives
would mobilize the ingenuity, energy,
intellectual assets and managerial
capacity of the pharmaceutical
sector?from biotechs to
multinational firms.
- Third, it would allow public sector
and philanthropic funders to stand at
arm's length from complex scientific
choices and tradeoffs, allowing firms
to make their own judgments about
the scientific feasibility and risks of
alternative strategies.
- Fourth, it would pay only for
results, providing sponsors with the
assurance that large-scale funding
would be provided if and only if an
effective and safe product that is
appropriate for the developing world
is manufactured in large enough
quantity to meet demand.
- Finally, such an arrangement would
speed up access to vaccines when
they are developed, and would
ensure long-term sustainable and
affordable supply.
Read full chapter (PDF 523kb)
|
Initiatives 
Print
Share