Researchers from Scynexis Inc. of Research Triangle Park, N.C., and Anacor Pharmaceuticals in Palo Alto, Calif., sponsored by the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative, on Tuesday reported in the journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases that a new experimental drug kills the parasite that causes African sleeping sickness in mice and will enter human clinical trials this year, ScienceNOW reports (Leslie, 6/28).

A post on “PharmaTech Talk” highlights comments made by USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah at the Partnerships for Global Health Forum, an annual event which is sponsored by BIO and BioVentures for Global Health. “Shah talked about the role of public-private partnerships to improve innovations in science and technology. … Shah admitted that in the past it has been hard for the private sector to engage USAID, but he made a point to say that if the biotech/pharma industry builds a breakthrough product that can save lives, USAID will help to deliver it to the populations that need it most. He said USAID is already working to better engage the private sector as well as academic institutions to make such partnerships easier to navigate, and less bureaucratic” (Drakulich, 6/27).

Writing in the Center for Global Development’s “Views From The Center” blog about the creation of a hedging tool by the World Bank and J.P. Morgan to help protect farmers from volatile food prices in developing countries,  CGD Vice President for Corporate Affairs Todd Moss says that having safeguards in…

The social entrepreneurial organization Ashoka and pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim on Tuesday announced they are launching a three-year global initiative aimed at “promot[ing] healthy individuals, families and communities by identifying and supporting the most promising solutions to challenging health problems,” according to an Ashoka press release. The “Making More Health”…

More than 50 companies involved in global development work have formed the Coalition of International Development Companies “in hopes of gaining more visibility for their work with the U.S. Agency for International Development as well as with other government agencies and nongovernmental organizations,” Washington Technology reports.

Speaking Thursday at an informal civil society hearing that is a precursor to the first-ever high-level meeting on non-communicable diseases (NCDs), top U.N. officials “stressed the need for governments, the private sector and civil society to work together and more effectively to address cancers, diabetes and other non-communicable diseases, which account for nearly two thirds of global deaths each year,” the U.N. News Centre reports (6/16).

The Wall Street Journal examines how some top business schools are tailoring their programs to students who are interested in the health care industry, “which promises to grow as populations age and those in developing countries demand access to the latest treatments.”

A new report from the World Bank and International Finance Corporation outlines how the public and private sectors in Africa can work together to improve health care quality and access, VOA News reports (Onyiego, 6/6).

“We need a global approach to achieving food security,” Tom Daschle, former Senate majority leader and chair of the DuPont Advisory Committee on Agricultural Innovation and Productivity for the 21st Century, writes in a Politico opinion piece.

Hewlett-Packard on Monday announced it will provide “smartphones and cloud computing technology to nonprofit group Positive Innovation for the Next Generation (PING)” to help improve health monitoring and malaria detection in Botswana, Venture Beat reports (Takahashi, 6/6).