Revenge of the Microbes II

This past spring I wrote a post about the increase in the volume in public, governmental, medical, and industrial voices on the challenge of microbial resistance to the current drug arsenal (“Revenge of the Microbes,” 4/21/11).  As is pretty well known, the rates of occurrence of multi-drug resistant infections by microbes (aka “super bugs” that [...]

TB DD Needy

Last month the third annual Global Funding of Innovation for Neglected Diseases (“G-Finder”) report was released by Policy Cures, a grant-funded policy research operation in Sydney (G-Finder page).   Through a survey of more than 800 organizations, the G-Finder team compiles and sorts the amounts of money spent in the previous year (2009) on neglected disease [...]

Creditworthy

Last week, the team at the Center for Global Health R and D Policy Assessment (CGHRDPA), a subsidiary of the Results for Development Institute (R4D) released another “consultation draft” on R and D policy for global health, this one entitled “Can a R&D Tax Credit Expand Investment in Product Development for Global Health?” (Tax Credit [...]

Starting Uphill

Start up companies face a tough go- converting a new technology into saleable products on minimal funding- and those aiming at products for global health have even a harder challenge by swimming against the conventional wisdom that a highly-priced, reimbursable product is the only way to profitability.  But one piece to solving the currently intractable [...]

Yet Another

In previous posts I have noted the proliferation of commissions, centers, institutes, and advisory groups which conduct numerous studies, analyses, and reviews and publish a host of reports, conclusions, summaries, and policy guidance in the name of improving global health, but mostly, it seems to me, aim to steer money to themselves and their pet [...]

A Day Late and a Dollar Short

Thanks to the FierceBiotech newsletter, I learned yesterday that the director of the NIH, Francis Collins, is lobbying Congress for a $500 million fund that would support clinical trials of drugs for neglected diseases being developed by start-up biotech companies, up to $15 million per company (FierceBiotech article).  The writer cites an interview by Bloomberg [...]

The Emperor’s New Clothes

One of my favorite tales is the “Emperor’s New Clothes,” the most well-known version is that retold by the Danish folklorist, Hans Christian Anderson.  A vain emperor is convinced by scoundrels posing as tailors that they have created a beautiful set of clothes for him that can only been seen and appreciated by the sophisticated [...]

Thinking Out of the Box

In the in vitro diagnostics industry, the “box” is the instrument that measures the reaction between a reagent and a disease-relevant analyte (biomarker) to provide information about the disease or condition of interest.  In the resource-rich countries, samples are obtained from patients by technicians, sent to a central lab for processing, and the results returned [...]

USAID and Innovation

The recent Life Science Innovation Northwest conference (held March 16-17 in Seattle, Innovation NW) had a prominent yet unusual luncheon keynote speaker.  It was Dr. Rajiv Shah, the new administrator of the US Agency for International Development which is better know for its role in international aid rather than innovation in biotech.  Dr. Shah has [...]

Creating the Upside

I’m sure that everyone interested in the business side of global health knows the conventional wisdom (CW) that the markets for global health products aren’t there.  After all if the spending on health care in developing countries is a few dollars per person per year, how could they afford the developed world’s “miracle” drugs that [...]