Boot Straps

It would be hard to miss the political football that persons of all political persuasions are playing with the Affordable Care Act (aka Obama Care, but since it is a rehash of a plan pushed by some Republicans in the reign of Bush I, it should be called O-B [Obie] Care).  One aspect of the [...]

Hunting the Elusive Snark

I was surprised, and a bit disquieted, when I was notified in late December by the program committee that my proposal for a panel in the upcoming Bioindustry Organization (BIO) International Convention had been accepted.  I have attended the BIO confab in the past during my employed years and more recently under my own banner, [...]

NTD TD

While viewing audience for the upcoming Souper-duper Bowl is likely to exceed 100 million, 16 times more people are afflicted with the world’s most disabling and disfiguring diseases, the “neglected tropical diseases” (NTDs).  These 1.6 billon and another 2 billion people at risk of infection are the target audience for last Monday’s “Uniting to Combat [...]

A Plan for Essential Care

Back in November, I wrote about attending the inaugural symposium of the Center for Global Health of the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and about my good impression of one of the speakers, Walter T. Gwenigale, former (pending reappointment) Minister of Health and Social Welfare of Liberia (my post of 11/18/10). Dr. Gwenigale spoke about the [...]

Affordability Revisited

Two postings ago (October 14), I noted that Cipla, the billion-dollar Indian generic pharma company, is developing affordable versions of biological anti-cancer drugs and that it likely assumes there will be some type of scheme to pay for the drugs.  [Sidebar:  Pfizer closed a multimillion dollar deal for diabetes bio-similars last week with another Indian [...]

Start Up Mode

Networking is well known as a powerful tool to start up a new endeavor (like a new company or career) because it is a low-cost way to connect individual sellers (of a new product or new me) to the potential buyers (like investors or employers).  While in-person glad-handing/smoozing is the traditional and probably most effective [...]

Market Tested and Not-yet Approved

I recently met with the director of development for Boston University’s new Center for Global Health and Development (CGHD), an interdisciplinary program that is based in the School of Pubic Health but also calls on faculty from the other schools.  Largely grant-funded, the researchers of the center conduct studies aimed at generating information to guide [...]

I’d Love to Change the World

This week two sound bites from the 18th (or in superbowlish:  XVIII) International AIDS Conference underway in Vienna (AIDS Conference) caught my ear.  The first was our former president Bill Clinton who was widely quoted in the media:  “In too many countries, too much money goes to pay for too many people to go to [...]

Moving Along Smartly

I’ve observed that we in the US are gifted with an extensive global health industry composed of advocacy groups, policy think tanks, academic institutes, and non-governmental organizations/contractors.  I’ve also noticed that several of these groups in the past year have weighed in on what the US government should being doing (a change of administration helped, [...]

Medical Diplomacy: a Ship of State Adrift

Medical diplomacy is the government-sponsored promotion of health and wellness in other countries with the aim of building relationships that will help the donor country get its way in world politics, or, less cynically, is a reflection of the core value of the citizens of the donor country for helping others.  Wealthy countries are able [...]