Devex: How innovative financing and partnerships are transforming the infectious disease product pipeline
BT Slingsby, CEO and executive director of the GHIT Fund

“…In response to the lack of investment in products for infectious disease, Japan has created a pioneering model for global health R&D financing and governance. The first fund of its kind globally, the [Global Health Innovative Technology (GHIT)] Fund is an international nonprofit funded jointly by the Japanese government, Japanese pharmaceutical companies, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Wellcome Trust, and United Nations Development Program. GHIT promotes the development of drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics as part of the fight against infectious disease primarily prevalent in low- and middle-income countries. … Partnership and funding are the tools, but they don’t mean much without concrete measures of success. For us, success means effective, accessible products. It also means rigorously measuring progress along the way so that we can shift our investment if key milestones aren’t met. … More governments and life science companies need to invest — and, more specifically, partner [in global health R&D]…” (11/5).