Research Roundup: MDGs, TB vaccines, impactful innovations, budget trackers, and more

In this post, Eoghan Walsh—communications officer at Deutsche Stiftung Weltbevoelkerung (DSW)—writes about the need for Europe to increase financial and political support for efforts aimed at creating new ways to tackle diseases such as HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria. This post originally appeared on the DSW blog on September 4. Support for global health is at the core of DSW’s advocacy work. One of the four focus areas for the organization is to have global health policies and financing include and support sexual and reproductive health and rights. We recognize at DSW the urgent need to improve the global health situation, and we continue to advocate for health improvements in low- and middle-income countries. As part of this work, we are launching a series of policy briefs on the issue of global health research and development (R&D), outlining why we need to increase financial and political support (in Europe) for efforts aimed at creating new ways to tackle diseases such as HIV and AIDS, TB, and malaria. Download the new infographic on European investment in poverty-related and neglected tropical diseases now!   R&D for PRNDs A crucial element of European investment in global health is support for the development and distribution of innovative new interventions to tackle head-on diseases that affect a huge number of people living in low- and middle-income countries. Poverty-related and neglected tropical diseases (PRNDs), such as HIV and AIDS, TB and malaria—as well as 17 other infectious diseases identified by the World Health Organization (WHO )—affect more than one billion people around the world, causing 6 million deaths annually. 90/10 gap Because these diseases affect people living in some of the world’s poorest countries, for many years there has been insufficient investment in R&D aimed at addressing and eradicating these diseases as the private sector has not seen a market interest in developing new medicines and treatments. It is estimated that, overall, only 10 percent of the world’s resources for health research are directed at diseases that affect the poorest 90 percent of the world’s population. Return on investment for Europe It is because of this “90/10” gap that we work for increased political and financial support to global health R&D, supporting the creation of modern, effective, affordable, and accessible medical interventions to bring an end to the suffering caused by PRNDs. As part of our new series of policy briefs on global health R&D, today we are launching an infographic—developed in collaboration with Policy Cures—outlining the value for the European Union (EU) in investing in global health R&D, and how funding for global health R&D can have positive economic and health benefits for Europe as well as the rest of the world, and have significant return on investment. Read on and support us as we advocate for an end to these terrible diseases! Did you know? PRNDs account for 361 million years of healthy and productive life lost globally There are no vaccines for HIV or malaria The EU invested €2.1 billion in PRNDs research between 2007-2012 Since 2000, 47 new products aimed at PRNDs have been registered, with over 350 more in the pipeline Infographics provided by DSW.

In this regular feature on Breakthroughs, we highlight some of the most interesting reads in global health research from the past week. Earlier this month, advocates from the Community Research Advisors Group (CRAG)—an international, community-based advisory body working to ensure the engagement of affected communities in tuberculosis (TB) research conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—published an article in The Lancet offering a community perspective on the use of the drug bedaquiline to treat drug-resistant and drug-susceptible TB. The US Food and Drug Administration approved bedquiline for the treatment of drug-resistant TB—via an accelerated approval process—in December 2012, making it the first new drug from a novel class approved to treat TB in more than 40 years. Former chief scientist at the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Alex Dehgan, sat down with the Center for Global Development to talk about the new USAID Global Development Lab. Dehgan—who was a major architect of the Lab—said the Lab’s purpose is to “rethink assumptions and harness the power of the crowd and America’s leading research institutes and universities, coupled with the democratization of science and technology, to lead to new breakthroughs that it can bring to scale.” SciDev reports that only 86 of about 3,200 people in the “Highly Cited Researchers” list are living in developing countries. SciDev examined Thomson Reuters’ The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds: 2014 report and found a significant North-South divide in recent citations of published papers across science. In sub-Saharan Africa, only researchers in South Africa were highly cited. Pharmaceutical company Novartis has signed a licensing agreement with GHTC member TB Alliance to advance drug development to fight TB. Novartis will transfer its TB research program to TB Alliance, which will “take financial and operational responsibility for continued research, development, approval and distribution of compounds in the portfolio.” With the world’s worst Ebola outbreak still not under control, the United Kingdom and the Wellcome Trust are pledging $10.8 million to launch an emergency research effort to help fight the disease. Experts from around the world have been asked to submit research proposals by September 8 that can quickly investigate new ways of treating, preventing, and containing Ebola.