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In this regular feature on Breakthroughs, we highlight some of the most interesting reads in global health research from the past week. The European Parliament approved the European Union’s participation in the second round of the European & Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP). EDCTP’s activities will include promoting and supporting multicenter projects that combine clinical trials, capacity building, and networking; capacity development for clinical trials and clinical research in sub-Saharan countries; and closer collaboration with industry, other product development partners, and funding or development agencies. According to an opinion piece in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, some scientists warn that US biomedical research is on an unsustainable path and needs reform. The scientists suggest that the system may be producing too many new researchers and forcing them to compete for a stagnating pool of funding. GHTC member the Global Health Innovation and Technology (GHIT) Fund was recently interviewed by Devex. In the interview, GHIT Fund executive director, B.T. Slingsby, spoke about what support is needed for research and development to continue the fight against malaria and tuberculosis, and how public-private partnerships can help put these overlooked diseases back on the map. A team of researchers at the Indian Institute of Science have been experimenting with a novel vaccine candidate against malaria and have found promising results in mice. The vaccine candidate has been proven to be 80 to 85 percent efficacious in the animals recently vaccinated.

In this guest post, Heather Ignatius—senior policy and advocacy officer at PATH—writes about the new Global Development Lab at the US Agency for International Development (USAID). The Lab was formally launched at an event in New York City earlier this month by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah. Last week I had the opportunity to attend a briefing on the new USAID Global Development Lab. The Lab—as it’s now referred to—aims to invent, test, and apply dramatically more cost efficient and impactful solutions to men, women, and children so they can lift themselves out of extreme poverty. It will collaborate with many stakeholders—including entrepreneurs, the private sector, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), universities, and science and research institutions—to incorporate science, technology, innovation, and partnerships as a means to solve development challenges and improve the lives of millions of people in a short time span. The launch of the Lab brings the tremendous science, technology, and innovation credentials America has to offer to the practice of development. This effort will embed the principles of partnership and innovation into USAID’s DNA, allowing the agency to become a cutting-edge leader in development. The Lab aims to invent, test, and apply dramatically more cost efficient and impactful solutions to men, women, and children so they can lift themselves out of extreme poverty. Photo: PATH/Gabe Bienczycki The Lab will bring together a diverse set of partners to “discover, incubate, and scale breakthrough development innovations” in many of the sectors USAID works in, including health. There are eight stated areas of focus for the Lab: Food Security and Nutrition; Modernizing Food Assistance; Ending Preventable Child and Maternal Deaths; Energy Access; Water Solutions; Child Literacy; Financial Inclusion; Rights, Participation and Accountability; and Humanitarian Response. Some of the agency’s key research programs, including the PEER Health Program and the Development Innovation Ventures initiative, will be housed within the Lab. It is encouraging to hear that health will be one of the issues areas the Lab takes up, and many of the innovations highlighted by the Lab are in the health arena—including products developed through USAID’s successful Saving Lives at Birth grand challenge. However, it should be noted that the majority of USAID’s investments in global health research and development (R&D) currently sit outside the Lab’s structure. As it moves from concept into operations, it will be important for USAID to ensure that the Lab is synergistic with the agency’s other global health R&D efforts. It will also be important to maintain investment for innovations that sit outside the Lab. As the bedrock of many global health successes, R&D is critical to developing the next generation of health tools that can prevent, treat, and one day halt existing and emerging global health threats. For more than 25 years, PATH has worked with USAID to identify global health needs and adapt, design, develop, and advance appropriate and affordable health technology solutions. By serving as the bridging agent between the public and private sectors, PATH has helped advance more than 80 technologies tailored to low-resources settings with more than 100 private-sector collaborators that have matched federal dollars two to one. At the Lab’s launch, USAID’s leaders issued an open invitation to partners to help shape the Lab’s formation. We look forward to working with USAID to realize the full potential of the Lab to accelerate innovation for health. It will not be possible to meet tomorrow’s development challenges without innovation. New and effective health solutions must be part of that equation.

In this regular feature on Breakthroughs, we highlight some of the most interesting reads in global health research from the past week. The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has formally launched its Global Development Lab—an initiative that hopes to bring greater innovation to ending extreme poverty. At an event in New York City, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and USAID Administrator Raj Shah officially launched the Lab, which will focus on six thematic areas: food security and nutrition, maternal and child survival, energy access, sustainable water solutions, child literacy, and “connected technologies.” According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, official development assistance grew by 6.1 percent worldwide in 2013 to $134.8 billion. Foreign aid for development in low- and middle-income countries hit record highs, especially in countries like the United Kingdom, Iceland, Japan, and the United Arab Emirates. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said this week that health is a “great global connector” and that ignoring diseases in other nations will punish people everywhere. She added that nations not only have practical and economic reasons to fight diseases in other countries, but that they have a humanitarian reason as well. On World Health Day this week, the United Nations (UN) urged the international community to support a global health agenda that gives higher priority to fighting vector-borne diseases. Vector-borne diseases—like malaria, dengue, yellow fever, Japanese encephalitis, Chagas disease, and leishmaniasis—“cause chronic illness and immense suffering for hundreds of millions [of people],” said UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.