Ideas to Action:

Independent research for global prosperity

Multimedia

CGD's weekly Global Prosperity Wonkcast, event videos, whiteboard talks, slides, and more.

Bringing Needed Medicines to Market: Tom Bollyky

Tom Bollyky
In this Wonkcast, originally posted on July 2010, Tom Bollyky explains the problems that motivated him in establishing CGD’s Clinical Trials and Regulatory Pathways Working Group. The group’s final report, Safer, Faster, Cheaper: Improving Clinical Trials and Regulatory Pathways to Fight Neglected Diseases, will be released on Monday, October 31, with keynote remarks by Margaret Hamburg, Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Listen to the Wonkcast to understand the problems and get a sneak preview on the proposed solutions. RSVP here to attend the event.

Confronting the Global Tobacco Epidemic: Thomas Bollyky

Tom BollykyTen years after President Clinton's initiative to avert a global epidemic of tobacco-related disease, smoking is down in the United States but rising fast in poor countries, where Washington turns a blind eye to aggressive cigarette marketing banned at home.

My guest on this show is Thomas Bollyky, a visiting fellow here at CGD. Tom recently marked the 10th anniversary of Clinton’s order with articles in Foreign Policy and the Journal of the American Medical Association about how U.S. efforts to combat the global tobacco epidemic have remained modest, while tobacco companies have aggressively expanded markets for their products and opposed tobacco control and prevention programs in low- and middle-income countries.

Bringing Medicines to Market: Tom Bollyky on Clinical Trials for Neglected Diseases

Tom BollykyFueled by charitable giving, more and more medical research is focusing on treating and curing thus-far neglected diseases. Is the regulatory framework ready? My guest this week is Tom Bollyky, a visiting fellow here at the Center for Global Development. Tom is a lawyer by training, and is currently working on the important legal and regulatory issues surrounding clinical trials for medicines to treat neglected diseases.

For those unfamiliar with the scale of the problem, Tom gives a quick introduction to what neglected diseases are. Common diseases like malaria and tuberculosis and less common diseases like dengue fever and hookworm together afflict more than one billion people worldwide. Yet, because they’re not big problems in high income countries, very little research has gone towards finding cures for them.