The Center for Global Development and the University of Chicago's Market Shaping Accelerator join forces to address issues in global health, climate change, and more.
WASHINGTON—The Center for Global Development (CGD) and the University of Chicago’s Market Shaping Accelerator (MSA) are pleased to announce a new partnership to advance research and policy related to market shaping for innovation in global health, climate change, and other global issues that have significant social value and would benefit from greater investment from the private sector.
The new partnership, which builds on CGD’s longstanding commitment to bringing market shaping policies to fruition, seeks to address a range of global health issues, including antimicrobial resistance; repurposing generic drugs for neglected tropical diseases; and providing strategic advice for pandemic preparedness, including at-risk procurement of vaccines and other medical countermeasures. Climate-related initiatives include supporting market shaping mechanisms to advance the development of climate-resilient crops, reducing methane emissions from livestock, and greenhouse gas removal technologies.
Rachel Glennerster, President of the Center for Global Development, said, “This exciting, new collaboration between CGD and MSA is a significant step forward in aligning market incentives with global needs. Growing global challenges like climate change and pandemics demand rapid innovation and action—market-shaping mechanisms can play a crucial role in spurring the development and adoption of new innovations.”
The announcement follows the culmination of MSA’s inaugural USD 2 million Innovation Challenge, where teams from across the globe competed to develop ideas for market-shaping pull mechanisms aimed at incentivizing solutions for climate change and global health. Following 186 applications, the final, held on September 9 at CGD’s offices in Washington D.C., saw three teams present their proposals to a panel of expert judges.
The winning team, led by Jano Costard from the German Federal Agency for Disruptive Innovation (SPRIND), was awarded a grand prize of $290,000. The team presented an ambitious advance market commitment to fund the development and stockpiling of platform-based broad-spectrum antivirals, which have the potential to revolutionize pandemic response capabilities and quell outbreaks before they spread, by having treatments available on day one.
A team from Duke-Margolis Institute for Health Policy and Akhil Bansal tied in second place. Duke-Margolis proposed two pull mechanisms to incentivize the repurposing of generic drugs: an advance market commitment for treatments for diseases in the United States and a prize for treatments for neglected tropical diseases.
Akhil Bansal designed the “NeoTest AMC”—an advance market commitment to accelerate innovation in neonatal sepsis diagnostics for use in low- and middle-income countries. Both teams were awarded $155,000 each.
CGD and MSA will continue to support the three teams in bringing their ideas to market through additional funding and technical expertise.
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Notes for Editors
About the Center for Global Development
The Center for Global Development (CGD) is an independent, nonpartisan think tank, based out of Washington D.C. and London. It works to reduce global poverty and improve lives through innovative economic research that drives better policy and practice by the world's top decision makers.
About CGD’s work on market shaping
‘Market shaping’ or ‘pull financing’ uses the promise of future sales or other revenue to ‘pull’ new solutions to seemingly intractable social problems to market. It can take several different forms, including advance market commitments, advanced purchase agreements, volume guarantees, milestone payments, market entry prizes, and others. Incentivizing innovation through pull financing can drive the private sector to develop, test, and scale innovations to save lives and change the world.
The initial advance market commitment concept was refined, tested, and incubated at CGD, in collaboration with Nobel Prize winner Michael Kremer, targeting the development of pneumococcal vaccines.
For more information, please visit: www.cgdev.org/
About the University of Chicago’s Market Shaping Accelerator
The Market Shaping Accelerator aims to harness the momentum and interest in market shaping tools from global successes in vaccine development to accelerate their adoption by governments, multilateral institutions, and philanthropies to solve the world’s most pressing challenges.
For more information, please visit: marketshaping.uchicago.edu/