In this regular feature on Breakthroughs, we highlight some of the most interesting reads in global health research from the past week. As the world’s worst outbreak of Ebola continues to kill thousands of people in West Africa, pharmaceutical companies are beginning to focus their efforts of developing an effective vaccine that could prevent future outbreaks. Recently, both GlaxoSmithKline and Johnson & Johnson have announced plans to begin conducting human clinical trials for a vaccine. In a recent blog post in Breakthroughs, Deutsche Stiftung Weltbevoelkerung writes about the urgent need to improve the global health situation, and how they continue to advocate for health improvements in low- and middle-income countries. As part of this work, they have launched a series of policy briefs on the issue of global health research and development (R&D), outlining why we need to increase financial and political support (in Europe) for efforts aimed at creating new ways to tackle diseases such as HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. In a new article in PLOS, global health experts write on how the international community can fund global health R&D projects. After the World Health Assembly meeting last May, four demonstration projects were selected by Member States to apply new approaches to neglected disease research. Funding for these projects will come from a pooled international fund. A new paper takes a more detailed look into the pipeline for neglected diseases, finding 650 clinical studies for diseases primarily affecting populations in low- and middle-income countries. The study’s authors found that research centers and public organizations are the most important clinical trial sponsors (58.9 percent), followed by the pharmaceutical industry (24.1 percent), and foundations and nongovernmental organizations (9.3 percent). Thus far in 2014, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the same amount of novel new medicines it did for the entire year in 2013. To date, the FDA has approved 27 novel new medicines—which includes biologics. If the agency continues at this rate, it may come close to matching the 39 novel new medicines approved in 2012.

In this regular feature on Breakthroughs, we highlight some of the most interesting reads in global health research from the past week. In a United Nations Foundation blog post, Carla Koppell—chief strategy officer at the US Agency for International Development—notes that much remains to be done to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and argues that accelerating progress on the MDGs in the last 500 days will require harnessing the power of science, technology, and innovation. GHTC member Aeras has announced the initiation of a large, multi-country Phase IIb clinical trialto test a novel vaccine candidate’s ability to prevent tuberculosis in adults. Aeras and GlaxoSmithKline Vaccines, S.A. will evaluate the efficacy, safety, and immunogenicity of GSK’s vaccine candidate, M72/AS01E, and will enroll more than 3,500 healthy adults ages 18-50 years old in sub-Saharan African. The Kaiser Family Foundation has developed an interactive US global health budget tracker that will include regularly updated information on historical trends and funding levels throughout the appropriations process as it pertains to global health. GHTC member PATH is developing the Innovative Countdown initiative to showcase the innovations the world believes have the greatest promise to accelerate progress and “bend the curve” of present trends to meet the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals health targets. To participate in the survey, click here. Claire Topal, senior advisor for international health at The National Bureau of Asian Research, interviewed Rob Lin from the Infectious Disease Research Institute on the value of product development partnerships (PDPs). Lin discusses how PDPs came about, what gaps PDPs currently fill in the development of new global health tools, the costs associated with development new health products, and the various collaborations PDPs are involved in to maximize the impact of their work.

In this regular feature on Breakthroughs, we highlight some of the most interesting reads in global health research from the past week. Earlier this month, advocates from the Community Research Advisors Group (CRAG)—an international, community-based advisory body working to ensure the engagement of affected communities in tuberculosis (TB) research conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—published an article in The Lancet offering a community perspective on the use of the drug bedaquiline to treat drug-resistant and drug-susceptible TB. The US Food and Drug Administration approved bedquiline for the treatment of drug-resistant TB—via an accelerated approval process—in December 2012, making it the first new drug from a novel class approved to treat TB in more than 40 years. Former chief scientist at the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Alex Dehgan, sat down with the Center for Global Development to talk about the new USAID Global Development Lab. Dehgan—who was a major architect of the Lab—said the Lab’s purpose is to “rethink assumptions and harness the power of the crowd and America’s leading research institutes and universities, coupled with the democratization of science and technology, to lead to new breakthroughs that it can bring to scale.” SciDev reports that only 86 of about 3,200 people in the “Highly Cited Researchers” list are living in developing countries. SciDev examined Thomson Reuters’ The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds: 2014 report and found a significant North-South divide in recent citations of published papers across science. In sub-Saharan Africa, only researchers in South Africa were highly cited. Pharmaceutical company Novartis has signed a licensing agreement with GHTC member TB Alliance to advance drug development to fight TB. Novartis will transfer its TB research program to TB Alliance, which will “take financial and operational responsibility for continued research, development, approval and distribution of compounds in the portfolio.” With the world’s worst Ebola outbreak still not under control, the United Kingdom and the Wellcome Trust are pledging $10.8 million to launch an emergency research effort to help fight the disease. Experts from around the world have been asked to submit research proposals by September 8 that can quickly investigate new ways of treating, preventing, and containing Ebola.

In this regular feature on Breakthroughs, we highlight some of the most interesting reads in global health research from the past week. This month, after nearly ten years of effort, the first batch of malaria drugs manufactured with a new, semisynthetic form of a key ingredient, artemisinin, will start reaching African countries battling the disease. The lifesaving drugs, manufactured by Sanofi—a French pharmaceutical company—are the first of their kind to use semisynthetic artemisinin in place of the plant-derived form of artemisinin used in the past. The new shipment marks a milestone in global health, potentially improving access to treatment for the millions of people, mostly African children, sickened by malaria every year. The Global Coalition to Advance Preterm Birth Research (GCAPR), a new partnership initiated by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the March of Dimes Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and GHTC member the Global Alliance to Prevent Prematurity and Stillbirth, has been created to take on the high rate of preterm births and help prevent the health risks associated with them. An estimated 15 million babies are born preterm every year and more than 1 million die within the first 30 days of birth. The National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has performed a successful early-stage clinical trial for a vaccine against mosquito-borne viral illness chikungunya. There are currently no vaccines or specific drugs to prevent or treat chikungunya, and as of this month there have been more than 570,000 confirmed or suspected cases reported throughout North and South America. The first-ever Africa Leaders Summit this month was a clear example that partnerships between the United States and African nations are strong and building momentum. The summit was a busy few days with a flurry of announcements, but the practical implications of the summit for global health innovation were examined by GHTC Policy Officer Ashley Bennett in a recent post on Breakthroughs. In The Huffington Post’s blog, Dr. Jonathan Mermin—director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for HIV and AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention—writes about the need for new tools to fight tuberculosis (TB). He states, “Until we have better ways of detecting and treating TB, thousands of Americans and millions of people worldwide will continue to suffer from an illness that should have been consigned to history long ago.”

In this regular feature on Breakthroughs, we highlight some of the most interesting reads in global health research from the past week. This month at the Saving Lives at Birth: A Grand Challenge for Development’s DevelopmentXChange event in Washington, DC, bright minds from all over the world came together to display groundbreaking prevention and treatment approaches for pregnant women and newborns in low- and middle-income countries. The event also offered an opportunity for policymakers and decision makers to talk about the importance of science, research, and innovation for global health. During last week’s US-Africa Leaders Summit, the White House released a fact sheet on American and African cooperation for global health. As the world’s largest donor to global health, the United States is committed to working with African governments to improve the health of its citizens—including achieving an AIDS-free generation, ending preventable maternal and child deaths, enhancing global health security, and supporting African countries invest in the health of its own citizens. The World Health Organization said it thinks an Ebola vaccine should be ready for public use by 2015. There is currently no vaccine or cure for Ebola, which is currently widespread in parts of West Africa and has killed over 900 people since March of this year. This year’s outbreak is the biggest ever reported since Ebola was discovered over 40 years ago. In the Huffington Post’s blog, Dr. Jonathan Mermin—director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for HIV and AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, and Tuberculosis (TB) Prevention—writes about the desperate need for new tools to prevent, detect, and treat TB and that “until we have better ways of detecting and treating TB, thousands of Americans and millions of people worldwide will continue to suffer from an illness that should have been consigned to history long ago.” An experimental vaccine to prevent dengue could be commercially available by July 2015, according to the vaccine’s makers—pharmaceutical company Sanofi Pasteur. There is currently no vaccine to prevent this mosquito-borne disease that affects thousands of people—mainly in low- and middle-income countries—every year.

“Innovation can’t take place if people say we don’t need new tools,” said Partners in Health Co-founder Paul Farmer at an event sponsored by the Saving Lives at Birth: A Grand Challenge for Development program last week in Washington, DC. And new tools were certainly on display at DevelopmentXChange 2014—a key component of the Saving Lives at Birth program. The DevelopmentXChange is an opportunity for hundreds of bright minds to come together and display groundbreaking prevention and treatment approaches for pregnant women and newborns in low- and middle-income countries. The event is also a time for key policymakers and decision makers to talk about the importance of science, research, and innovation for global health. Saving Lives at Birth—a partnership between the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Government of Norway, Grand Challenges Canada, and the UK Department for International Development—provides funding for a select group of finalists that offer the most innovative new tools. Large crowds were spotted at the DevelopmentXChange Marketplace the morning of the event. The DevelopmentXChange opened up with a marketplace where finalists of the Saving Lives at Birth challenge could display their innovations and demonstrate how these new tools could make a difference in the lives of mothers and children in low-resourced settings. Imagine a giant science fair where, instead of competing for a blue ribbon, the participants are competing for funding to make their innovation a reality. On display were several proposed innovations from GHTC members FHI 360, Jhpiego, and PATH. FHI 360 proposed a synchronized schedule for postpartum women to receive family planning services and for their newborns to receive immunizations and growth monitoring all at the same time. One of the innovations Jhpiego developed was the E-Partogram—an affordable, easy-to-use handheld electronic decision-making tool for preventing and managing complications during labor. PATH was one of many other organizations to address postpartum hemorrhage by developing heat-stabilized oxytocin—a common treatment for hemorrhaging women after childbirth—in a fast-dissolving oral tablet that would treat postpartum hemorrhage.   USAID Administrator Raj Shah addresses the crowd at the DevelopmentXChange Forum After the marketplace, policymakers, scientists, members of the global health community, and the Saving Lives at Birth finalists gathered together for the DevelopmentXChange Forum, which included opening remarks from USAID Deputy Assistant Administrator for Global Health Katie Taylor, USAID Administrator Raj Shah, and Paul Farmer. Administrator Shah commended many of the past year’s innovations for making a real difference in the lives of women and children, and commented on how the Saving Lives at Birth program influenced the creation of USAID’s new Global Development Lab. The rest of the forum featured innovators from all over the world, including past Saving Lives at Birth challenge winners. One of the innovations featured at the forum was a new, low-cost device that assists in delivering babies when complications occur in the second stage of labor. The device—called the Odon Device—was originally thought of by an Argentine mechanic named Jorge Odon when he was thinking about how to get a cork out of a bottle one night. The Odon device is made of a film-like polyethylene material and could be a safer and easier way to deliver complicated births rather than using than forceps or a vacuum extractor. After Mr. Odon partnered with Becton, Dickinson and Company, and received funding from Saving Lives at Birth at last year’s DevelopmentXChange, the Odon Device was finally ready for full development. Now the device is being tested in clinical trials and—if approved—has the potential for wide application in resource poor settings. If there was one thing very apparent during the day, it was that great, life-saving ideas can come from anyone—no matter what they do or where they live. Saving Lives at Birth is a good example of a mechanism that brings governments, foundations, and for-profit companies together to encourage creativity and innovation to tackle some of the world’s most pressing problems. The day concluded with Wendy Taylor—director of USAID’s Center for Accelerating Innovation and Impact—announcing the winners of the Saving Lives at Birth challenge. GHTC members PATH and FHI 360 both won seed grants to get their ideas up and running so that one day they could have the potential to protect and improve the lives of mothers and children all over the world. GHTC congratulates all of the challenge winners and is inspired by every single one of the innovators who were at this year’s DevelopmentXChange.