“Close on the heels of the announcement that Australia is newly investing in global health product development, the … U.K.’s Department for International Development (DFID) announced [last week] it is investing £138 million — or approximately $215 million — over the next five years into nine product development partnerships (PDPs) to support the development of new drugs, vaccines, insecticides, diagnostic tools, and microbicides,” Kim Lufkin, communications officer at the Global Health Technologies Coalition (GHTC), writes in the coalition’s “Breakthroughs” blog. She says “this new round of funding is a welcome and much-needed continuation of the department’s recognition that new products are critical components of improving health worldwide.” “It’s incredibly encouraging to see that the United Kingdom is boosting its long-standing support for PDPs and that new donors like Australia are starting to enter the field,” Lufkin states, adding, “The outcome could have significant ramifications for the country’s role in global health and medical research” (8/30).