This work would have been impossible without the contributions of many dedicated individuals. The Working Group chairs are deeply grateful to the members of the Advance Market Commitment Working Group, who spent two years exploring in detail whether and how an advanced market commitment could lead to faster development of desperately needed health products for the developing world. The Working Group brought diverse expertise and a unified commitment: to develop a practical proposal, one that would have the potential to transform the risk-benefit calculus for industry, donors and developing countries. Working Group members are profiled in appendix C.
We would like to thank the many individuals who offered comments on this and earlier drafts of the report and the term sheets, coming from the pharmaceutical and biotech industry and academic, global public health, policy and investor communities. Those comments helped us think (and rethink) both the rationale and the elements of such a commitment; they challenged and enriched our understanding of the ways in which different types of funding are needed to support the steps on the way to effective—and effectively delivered—vaccines; and they contributed to a more complete conception of the benefits and risks of purchase and price guarantees. (A list of individuals consulted appears in appendix D.)
We are particularly grateful for the opportunity provided by Charles Clift to engage in an e-consultation under the auspices of the Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation and Public Health in November and December 2004. We appreciate the comments of participants at the October 2004 meeting of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association; several Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization Financing Task Force meetings; the September 2003 malaria meeting in Mozambique; the 6th International Rotovirus Symposium in Mexico City in July 2004; and the March 2005 Malaria Vaccine Technology Roadmap meeting in Provence, France. None of those who commented are responsible in any way for the ultimate content of this report.
We appreciate the time and encouragement of Melinda Moree and the staff of the Malaria Vaccine Initiative and Seth Berkley and the staff of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative. Generous with their knowledge and candid with their critiques, these individuals have strengthened this work greatly, but bear no responsibility for its ultimate content.
Several individuals made particularly important contributions to background analyses. We are indebted to Eyal Dvir, Rachel Glennerster, Jean Nahrae Lee, Julie Milstien, Violaine Mitchell, Rachel Podolsky, J. Niels Rosenquist, Georg Weizsacker and Heidi Williams. Their contributions are woven throughout this report.
Gargee Ghosh, who served as project manager from May 2003 through July 2004, deserves much of the credit for the group’s progress through to the October 2004 consultation draft of this report, which was widely circulated. We are grateful for her strong analysis, skillful management and helpful impatience. Nancy Birdsall and other colleagues at the Center for Global Development have provided useful comments and advice throughout.
We thank the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for financial support for this work, and Raj Shah, Hannah Kettler, Gina Rabinovich, Rick Klausner and others at the Foundation for their active engagement throughout the project.
Finally, we are profoundly indebted to John Hurvitz, a partner of Covington & Burling, where he is co-chair of the firm’s Life Sciences Industry Group and chair of the firm’s Technology Transitions Group. Together with his colleagues Stuart Irvin and Kevin Fisher, John provided support of incomparable value throughout this project. He worked tirelessly under a pro bono arrangement to develop creative and practical solutions to thorny contractual problems, and effectively translated among the languages (and cultures) of law, business and public health. This generous contribution, provided out of a commitment to make the world a better place, is at the very heart of our report.