News: Announcement

The Global Health Technologies Coalition (GHTC) today honored Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Congressman Ami Bera (D-CA) for their leadership in supporting global health research and development (R&D) with its 2021 Innovating for Impact Awards, which celebrate the US policymakers and partnerships driving global health innovation. GHTC also recognized Newborn Essential Solutions and Technologies (NEST360) for its work advancing innovations to end preventable newborn deaths. “As our comeback from the COVID-19 pandemic has made clear, strong investments in public health research and development are a cornerstone of the American economy and a benefit to communities around the world,” Senator Wicker said in accepting the award. Senator Wicker, who founded and co-chairs the Senate Caucus on Malaria and Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) and serves on the Armed Services Committee, was honored with a Congressional Champion Award for his long-standing work to advance policies and funding to combat global health challenges, including efforts to pass the End NTDs Act and protect Army and Navy malaria research programs.  GHTC also recognized Congressman Bera, who is a leader on the Foreign Affairs Committee, co-chair of the Tuberculosis Caucus, and a founding member of the Global Health R&D Congressional Working Group, with a Congressional Champion Award, for his determined leadership to strengthen global health security and his work pushing the US government to robustly support the international COVID-19 response, including by funding the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and other globally focused research efforts. “It’s my honor to accept this award,” Congressman Bera said, “I look forward to continuing to work to make the world a healthier, kinder place in the 21st century.” Additionally, GHTC honored NEST360 with its Partnership Award. NEST360 is an international alliance working to end preventable newborn deaths in African hospitals by developing and sustainably scaling up a package of hospital care including a comprehensive bundle of affordable, fit-for-purpose innovations to improve the care of small and sick newborns, along with training and implementation resources. Born out of the labs of the Rice University Rice360 Institute for Global Health Technologies, Malawi University of Business and Applied Sciences, and Malawi University of Science and Technology and fueled by the support of funders, including the US Agency for International Development and its Saving Lives at Birth Grand Challenge Program, NEST360 is comprised today of experts from 15 leading organizations.   Deploying a comprehensive health systems approach that combines the development, testing, and validation of health technologies with distribution systems, training, and resources to support their use, NEST360 has advanced numerous game-changing devices, from a low-cost CPAP to help babies breathe to a battery-operated jaundice detector, and achieved significant progress in transforming newborn care. Since its founding in 2017, NEST360 partners have collaborated with governments to implement services in 65 hospitals across four African countries, train 10,000 medical professionals, and deliver more than 2,300 newborn technologies. These NEST360 facilities support the delivery of 500,000 newborns and the specialized care of 90,000 small and sick newborns annually. “We are honored to receive this award, which recognizes the work we do with our alliance members, funders, and partners to advance innovations to end preventable newborn deaths in African hospitals,” said Maria Oden, Co-Principal Investigator of NEST360. “No baby should die needlessly, and no parent should have to suffer the loss of a child because the intervention needed is not available. The NEST360 alliance remains dedicated to working with governments to drive sustainable solutions to overcome the barriers that stand in the way of quality newborn health care.” While GHTC’s Innovating for Impact Awards were previously presented in person at a recognition dinner in Washington, DC, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2021 awards were unveiled via an online multimedia campaign. “GHTC is thrilled to honor Senator Wicker, Congressman Bera, and the NEST360 alliance with our Innovating for Impact Awards,” said Jamie Bay Nishi, director of GHTC. “The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored for all of us just how important health technologies, smart policymaking, and multisector partnerships are to confronting global health challenges. We’re delighted to be recognizing the outstanding work of our honorees who are driving innovation to advance health equity globally.” Global health R&D is vital to conquering the world’s greatest health challenges and to building a safer, healthier world for all. Now in their fifth year, the Innovating for Impact Awards celebrate US commitment to global health R&D and honor the multisector partnerships and policymakers helping to transform breakthrough scientific research into lifesaving technologies for unmet global health challenges. 

GHTC Multilateral Policy and Advocacy Officer Philip Kenol was selected as a finalist for Washington Global Health Alliance's (WGHA) Rising Star Award, which recognizes an individual age 40 or under who is making an exceptional impact in a global health organization or initiative. WGHA will announce the winner of the award on October 14 at its inaugural Global Health Impact Awards. For more information, see WGHA press release.

The Global Health Technologies Coalition (GHTC) applauds the US government’s efforts to host a Global COVID-19 Summit on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly next week and calls on heads of state, multilateral and regional bodies, and private-sector and non-governmental leaders to take this moment to take a fresh look at how to tackle the pandemic globally and solve the inequities that have plagued the COVID-19 response the past year and a half.GHTC is committed to the shared targets of vaccinating the world, saving lives now, and building back better. Within these priorities, we call on summit stakeholders to commit to bolstering global investments in robust surveillance and data sharing, including for genomic sequencing; increased testing and analysis to detect emerging variants; and research and development (R&D), including supporting clinical trials for “wave 2” therapeutic and vaccine candidates as well as increasing regional manufacturing capacities for all medical countermeasures. GHTC also supports the creation of a global health security financial intermediary fund that can be leveraged to mobilize resources for immediate COVID-19 response needs and bolster research, development, and manufacturing capabilities in every region as part of longer-term pandemic preparedness systems strengthening.GHTC stands ready to convene partners to assess gaps in the upstream R&D aspects of the COVID-19 response, to remove policy barriers, and to enable product developers to advance progress on delivering and deploying technologies fit for purpose for the lowest-resource settings. We are also committed to leveraging our platform to elevate perspectives of national and regional stakeholders from lower- and middle-income countries to ensure global investments in R&D and manufacturing capacity strengthening are driven in a way best suited to strengthening pandemic preparedness in each local context.Finally, we call for the establishment of a global envoy or focal point to galvanize support and align efforts when a new COVID-19 road map for ending the pandemic is developed, and to ensure accountability and global representation. The global community must come together and hold each other accountable to eliminate every bottleneck slowing down a truly global response to the COVID-19 pandemic. No one is safe until everyone is safe, and tangible collective action is the only way we will meet the targets of vaccinating the world, saving lives, and building back better.

Leaders of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee acted last week to strengthen America’s leadership on global health security by introducing the International Pandemic Preparedness and COVID-19 Response Act of 2021. Among many important elements, the bill includes authorization of U.S. participation in the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), an authorization passed by the House in the previous Congress. The legislation also reiterates congressional intent for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to make an “immediate contribution” of $300 million to CEPI from funding allocated for that purpose in the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) passed in March.Overall, ARPA allocated a total of $905 million to USAID for pandemic-related global health activities. Congress stipulated that the funding include “a contribution to a multilateral vaccine development partnership to support epidemic preparedness”—a clear nod to CEPI. After two months passed without an allocation to CEPI, several lawmakers followed up in May with a letter specifically calling on the administration to expediently allocate $300 million to CEPI for work directly related to the “immediate phase of the COVID-19 response.” Yet today, nearly four months after APRA’s passage and with fresh legislative evidence of congressional intent, CEPI has yet to receive the funding.Jamie Bay Nishi, Director of the Global Health Technologies Coalition, said:“While today, much attention is rightly focused on procuring more vaccine doses for low-income countries, funding for CEPI’s research is also critical for successfully using vaccines to end the pandemic. That includes currently underfunded work to identify and assess threats from disease variants; validate two-dose regimens that ‘mix and match’ vaccines from different manufacturers; and develop innovative approaches for providing immunizations in low-resource settings.Congress has made it clear that CEPI is a priority for fighting this stubbornly resilient and adaptable disease. The International Pandemic Preparedness and COVID-19 Response Act introduced in the Senate follows House action last Congress to specifically authorize U.S. participation in CEPI. And it goes further, specifying that it is the sense of Congress that CEPI receive an “immediate contribution” of $300 million from the ARPA funding to expand research and development of vaccines that can combat the spread of COVID-19 variants.We applaud the Biden administration for taking a more active role in fighting for vaccine equity. Now they should follow the intent of Congress by providing CEPI the funding it needs—and which Congress has clearly appropriated—to pursue research and innovations that will ensure effective COVID-19 vaccines can reach every corner of the world.”