Celebrating partnerships & policymakers
driving global health innovation

About the Innovating for Impact Awards

The Innovating for Impact Awards honor the multisector partnerships and policymakers helping to transform breakthrough scientific research into lifesaving drugs, diagnostics, vaccines, and other health tools for unmet global health challenges.

The initiative annually recognizes one research partnership that has advanced a game-changing global health technology and two US members of congress whose actions have furthered policies and political will to accelerate innovation to tackle the world’s most threatening diseases and health conditions. In 2022, GHTC has added a special Lifetime of Service award to recognize the extraordinary contributions Dr. Anthony Fauci has made to advancing global health innovation throughout his career.

2023 Honoree

Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick

Congressional Champion Award

Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick has steadily emerged as a top champion for global health innovation by spearheading and supporting numerous bills to bolster health research and development (R&D) during his four terms in Congress. He introduced the Supporting Innovative Global Health Technologies (SIGHT) Act to establish a new disease-agnostic R&D program at the US Agency for International Development, as well as the Reach Every Mother and Child (REACH) Act to advance interventions to reduce maternal and child deaths and the Securing America From Epidemics (SAFE) Act to authorize US participation in the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations. He is also an original cosponsor of the End Tuberculosis Now Act to catalyze innovations for tuberculosis and a cosponsor of the PASTEUR Act to advance incentives for antibiotic development. Additionally, Rep. Fitzpatrick has spoken out against proposed cuts to health agencies, standing in opposition to his own party’s leadership.
Recognized for his ability to work across the aisle to forge bipartisan solutions as the Republican Chair of the Problem Solvers Caucus, Representative Fitzpatrick has continued to champion the importance of smart US leadership in global health. “We have seen firsthand the widespread devastating effects of a global pandemic…this will not be the last contagious and deadly virus our world will battle and confront, which is why it is of the utmost importance our country continues to be a leader in global health,” he has said.
The United States has the opportunity to make a considerable contribution to ending preventable deaths of children, newborns, and new mothers worldwide. There are tools and resources that can be used across the globe to keep these deaths from ever happening.

Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick
Congressional Champion Honoree

2023 Honoree

Senator Chris Van Hollen

Congressional Champion Award

Senator Chris Van Hollen has been a steadfast and dedicated champion for medical research and global health programs during his two decades in Congress. As a member of both the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Agencies and the Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health Policy, he has consistently fought to grow funding for biomedical research and global health programs and to enact smart policies to further their impact.
During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Senator Van Hollen was not only a leading proponent for greater US engagement in the international response—including vaccine development and distribution efforts—but he also used his bully pulpit to shine a spotlight on research equity by pushing for clinical trials to enroll diverse, underrepresented populations and for public health directives to address the unique concerns of pregnant individuals. As the junior senator from a state that houses the National Institutes of Health, several defense health research programs, and a thriving biotechnology and university research community, Senator Van Hollen uniquely understands the importance of maintaining US leadership in health innovation. “Scientific research is crucial to spurring innovation that ultimately creates jobs, drives our economy, and saves lives,” he has said.
Viruses know no borders, and our ability to defeat COVID-19 depends upon our willingness to partner with other nations to stop the spread and mount a successful recovery. USAID serves at the forefront of our efforts to beat this virus – and in doing so, helps maintain America’s longstanding tradition of being a leader in global health – as has been the case in fighting malaria, tuberculosis, and notably, HIV/AIDS through PEPFAR.

Senator Chris Van Hollen
Congressional Champion Honoree

2023 Honoree

Cabotegravir Long Acting for HIV Prevention

Partnership Award

Honoring ViiV Healthcare, in partnership with the US National Institutes of Health (NIH); the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; the HIV Prevention Trials Network; Medicines Patent Pool; the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR); the US Agency for International Development; the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; the Coalition to Accelerate Access to Long-Acting PrEP, and community stakeholders, and with special thanks to all the researchers and participants involved in the clinical trials.

More than 1.5 million people become newly infected with HIV each year, most of whom live in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). While the introduction of oral pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) has helped drive significant declines in HIV infections globally, challenges with adherence and stigma have limited its impact in certain populations, including adolescent girls and young women. Thankfully, those at risk are now gaining access to a groundbreaking new prevention option: cabotegravir long-acting (CAB-LA) for PrEP. As a discreet solution that reduces the frequency with which people must take HIV medicine from daily pills to as few as six injections per year, CAB-LA can help more people adhere to PrEP and reduce infections, particularly among at-risk women and girls.
Developed by ViiV Healthcare, with support from NIH and the Gates Foundation, and first approved in the United States in late 2021, CAB-LA for PrEP is now being rolled out in resource-limited countries through a series of unique public-private partnerships. This includes projects funded by PEPFAR to support countries in implementing and scaling up CAB-LA, as well as an agreement with the Medicines Patent Pool to enable generic manufacturing of the product for use in LMICs. The development and introduction of CAB-LA for PrEP is a game-changing moment in the AIDS epidemic, not only because of the product’s potential to transform global HIV prevention efforts but also because it represents a paradigm shift in global access. Key partners have come together with urgency to radically compress the timeline between when people in wealthy and poor countries typically gain access to a new drug so that everyone, everywhere, can benefit from this breakthrough.
New HIV prevention agents that address the many needs of all individuals at risk for acquiring HIV are essential pillars of our strategy to end the HIV epidemic…this innovative new injectable option administered once every two months will expand the way we approach HIV prevention.

Dr. Myron Cohen
Co-Principal Investigator, HIV Prevention Trials Network