New Therapies for Diseases of Poverty
Biopharmaceutical companies have the technologies to develop many of the new therapies for neglected diseases, including:
- Fast, screening techniques (high-throughput screening) and new drug-finding technologies
- Extensive libraries of chemical compounds for screening
- Infrastructure and expertise in small molecule drug discovery
- Persistent and highly-knowledgeable employees who care about solving pressing health needs
Harnessing technical and human expertise to combat neglected diseases
Today, biotechnology companies have become the leading innovators of small-molecule drugs. Many of these drugs can be produced cheaply and targeted towards neglected diseases.
This raises the question: “What is holding biotech companies back from participating in global health?” Company executives and scientists have told us that understanding how their technologies and expertise are relevant to neglected diseases is both a key first step towards engagement and a significant challenge. The 2011 edition of our Global Health Primer connects the dots between neglected disease product needs and targets/technologies that are familiar to the biotech industry. Through the Global Health Primer, we hope to drive companies to explore the full spectrum of neglected disease product needs.