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The Global Health Technologies Coalition (GHTC) welcomes the decision this week by the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) Steering Committee to make permanent its pilot Research and Development (R&D) Task Force. This important decision gives the task force—which was launched in June 2021 as a one-year pilot effort focused on improving R&D readiness—a mandate to continue its work through the current GHSA strategic framework, which runs through 2024.In response to the decision, GHTC Executive Director Jamie Bay Nishi said, “GHTC and our members applaud the GHSA Steering Committee for making permanent the R&D Task Force—an action that not only enables it to continue its vital work, but also cements R&D capacity strengthening as a central part of GHSA’s broader mission to prevent, detect, and respond to health threats.”“The COVID-19 pandemic has made clear the importance of investing in R&D of medical countermeasures to combat health threats. But it has also exposed systemic gaps in the R&D capabilities of many nations—including limited surveillance, clinical research, manufacturing, and regulatory capacity—which have contributed to gross inequalities in access to health technologies between rich and poor nations. As a country-led collaborative effort, the GHSA R&D Task Force is uniquely positioned to play a leadership role in closing these gaps—and in just one year has already achieved important first steps toward that aim.”“Later this year, the task force will unveil a new tool designed to support countries in self-assessing their R&D capabilities, which aligns with and complements the International Health Regulations (IHR) and Joint External Evaluation (JEE) process. GHTC believes that at a local level, this tool can help GHSA nations identify country-specific R&D capacity gaps to address through their national preparedness plans, and at a global level, this evidence can inform the adoption of new indicators within the IHR or JEE to better address R&D readiness, as well as strategically guide the disbursement of funding from international mechanisms like the new World Bank prevention, preparedness, and response fund.”“Closing R&D capacity gaps is not a problem that will be solved overnight, but it is vital to bolstering the world’s pandemic defenses. We thank the GHSA Steering Committee for their vote of confidence to continue the task force’s work and their continued leadership and commitment to advancing a world better equipped with the R&D capabilities to prevent the next pandemic.”For more information on the GHSA R&D Task Force’s accomplishments and future vision, view its one-year progress report.

Interested in more global health innovation news? Every week GHTC scours media reports worldwide to deliver essential global health R&D news and content to your inbox. Sign up now to receive our weekly R&D News Roundup email. Following the remarkable success of the first COVID-19 vaccines, developed at unprecedented speeds, investment in next-generation shots has so far fallen short, according to some experts. Nasal vaccines, in particular, experts say could prove more effective at preventing COVID-19 infections than intramuscular shots, as they concentrate immune protection in the upper airway and induce mucosal immune responses where the virus typically enters the body. Several nasal vaccine candidates are in development in the United States—though primarily remain in preclinical or early-stage clinical trials—as well as globally, including phase 3 trials in India and China. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, for example, is funding early research on a protein-based nasal spray as well as an mRNA vaccine delivered into the nose using nanoparticles, though any successful nasal vaccine is likely years away from becoming available.As monkeypox cases continue to rise globally, experts and leaders are looking at health technologies with potential to combat the virus—including repurposed smallpox vaccines that have begun to be deployed, predominantly in high-income countries. In addition to vaccines, scientists are evaluating existing drugs that could serve as treatments against monkeypox, for which there are no specific treatments licensed. A recent study in JAMA analyzed several preexisting drugs, including antivirals brincidofovir and tecovirimat, both of which have been tested among monkeypox patients in the past with varying success. The ongoing uncertainty surrounding treatments for the new outbreak highlights the lack of evidence-based therapeutics for monkeypox, according to the journal article, as well as the inequities in the global response as countermeasures have been stockpiled by high-income countries but remain limited in monkeypox-endemic countries.In a new study, researchers describe how a Lassa virus protein drives infection by harnessing a cellular protein in human hosts, as well as identify how future therapies could target this interaction to treat patients. The research suggests that disrupting the link between Lassa polymerase—a protein encoded by the virus—and a specific host protein it interacts with—GSPT1—could stop Lassa virus infection. In pursuit of this, the research team identified an existing drug candidate, CC-90009, that has been shown to destroy GSPT1 proteins and is currently being examined in clinical trials as a cancer therapy. In early experiments, CC-90009 significantly reduced Lassa virus growth without obvious cell toxicity, and researchers plan to continue evaluation in animal models. There is currently no antiviral drug that specifically targets Lassa virus.

GHTC welcomes the recent addition of a specific indicator to measure research and development (R&D) capacity in the third edition of the Joint External Evaluation (JEE) tool—the instrument countries use to evaluate their health preparedness capabilities and compliance with the International Health Regulations (IHR), which govern countries’ obligations in handling public health threats. This is a significant addition, as it marks the first time R&D capacity has been explicitly factored into the JEE as a key measure of a country’s health preparedness.  As we saw with the COVID-19 pandemic, the lack of regionally distributed R&D and manufacturing capacities contributed to gross inequities in the global response, as regions with the strongest ability to develop medical countermeasures prioritized access for their populations while others were left scrambling to try to build their capabilities in real time. GHTC has for many years been calling for measures of R&D readiness to be formally integrated into the IHR and JEE, and we are pleased to see our advocacy efforts have contributed to this important update. We believe that the revised tool, and its inclusion of R&D, will ultimately improve the quality of assessment of countries’ capacities for timely detection, prevention, and effective response to public health emergencies.While the incorporation of an R&D-specific indicator is an important first step toward strengthening R&D capacity globally, GHTC is disappointed that the update has not gone further in comprehensively measuring the multitude of capabilities that are part of R&D readiness. The R&D indicator metrics have an insufficient focus on product development, and don’t measure important elements such as clinical trial, pharmacovigilance, and manufacturing capacity for various types of medical countermeasures, and we would have liked to see those incorporated into the new R&D indicator or elevated somewhere within the updated tool. While there are other separate indicators for surveillance and laboratory systems, they don’t interlink enough to provide countries with a comprehensive understanding of their national R&D capacity.As countries move to utilize this updated tool, GHTC will continue to work with partners and leverage platforms like the Global Health Security Agenda to push for an even more comprehensive R&D capacity assessment and strive to build a more equity-driven framework for prevention and response to future pandemic threats.