Worldwide attention is focusing on efforts to stimulate new vaccines, diagnostics, and drugs for diseases of poverty. Here are some highlights of the media coverage BIO Ventures for Global Health has received.
BIO Ventures for Global Health initiatives are making headlines
January 2012
New neglected disease research scheme pools IP and expertise
Nature Drug Discovery
A new global consortium, WIPO Re:Search, pools not just intellectual property but also intellectual capital to accelerate the development of new drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics for neglected tropical diseases, malaria, and tuberculosis."What we’re trying to do is to take out some of the error from the trial-and-error process of drug discovery, so that neglected tropical disease researchers, many of whom may be coming from the developing world, can have the same level of expertise or resources that big companies have at their disposal,” said Don Joseph, BVGH COO.
December 8, 2011
Industry continues dabbling with open innovation models
Nature Biotechnology
Seven large pharma companies and one biotech firm, Alnylam, have formed a new collaboration with the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). Named WIPO Re:Search, this open innovation initiative lines up United Nations agency WIPO of Geneva with Washington, BIO Ventures for Global Health, the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), drug companies and academic institutions in an effort to share intellectual property and resources to speed drug discovery in neglected tropical diseases, as well as malaria and tuberculosis.
November 14, 2011
Clinical Trials Are a Mess: How to Get Needed Vaccines Out Faster
The Atlantic
In an opinion piece on how to better deliver new and direly needed vaccines to underserved populations, the Center for Global Development's Amanda Glassman cites BVGH's Global Health Primer, pointing out that there are only two vaccines and treatments for malaria in phase III trials, compared to 59 in the remainder of the pipeline.
October 27, 2011
Big Pharma Giving Away Drug Patents To Help Cure Tropical Disease
Fast Company
Major pharmaceutical companies are providing access to their business-sustaining patents through WIPO Re:Search to speed up the lengthy, risky process of drug and vaccine development for some of the world's poorest citizens. The initiative will also facilitate partnerships between participating organizations to speed up research and development. “What the researchers want and what the companies are willing to provide is expertise and know-how between the lines of a patent,” said Don Joseph, BVGH COO. “They can say, here's work we've done before that worked, here's work that we've done before that didn't work. Don't reinvent the wheel.”
October 27, 2011
WIPO Re:Search Bridges Public, Private Sectors For Neglected Disease Research
Intellectual Property Watch
IA new public-private collaboration to develop medicines for the poorest countries was launched by the UN intellectual property organization. Although patent pooling is not a new idea, market forces have not driven innovation in the area of neglected tropical diseases until now. Another difference in this program is that it offers a very broad and diverse range of knowledge and IP to coalition members.
October 26, 2011
UN, drug makers to pool data on tropical diseases
Associated Press
Eight drug makers have agreed to create a U.N.-administered pool of patented information and other data to spur new research into 21 tropical diseases and ailments. The collaborative database, administered by BVGH, will include data drawn from patents, compounds and unpublished results and made available to qualified researchers through royalty-free licenses.
October 26, 2011
Drugmakers pool ideas to battle tropical diseases
Reuters
The World Intellectual Property Organization launched WIPO Re:Search that aims to allow the public and private sector to share intellectual property to promote the development of new drugs to treat diseases such as malaria.
October 26, 2011
Pharma giants open up drug patents in new collaboration
AFP
Pharmaceutical giants and the UN intellectual property agency launched a collaboration to share certain patented drug information with public organisations. The collaboration, WIPO Re:Search, is aimed at the development of new drugs and vaccines for abound 20 diseases, and will involve major drugmakers including Novartis, AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Merck and Sanofi.
October 26, 2011
GSK Joins WIPO Re:Search In Fight Against Neglected Tropical Diseases
Dow Jones
Eight major pharmaceutical companies have joined WIPO Re:Search as part of its open innovation strategy to help accelerate the development treatments against neglected tropical diseases. GSK will contribute patents and patent applications, covering small molecules and formulations directed at developing treatments and delivery technologies for NTDs as well as its full anti-malarial dataset which includes 13,500 compounds which in screening have shown evidence of activity against malaria.
October 26, 2011
Bridging the gap between industry and those fighting diseases of poverty
Humanosphere
A new global initiative launched aimed at combating neglected diseases in poor countries by closing a gap in the drug development process. In WIPO Re:Search, drug companies share their patents and discoveries, something that rarely is done. “There’s been an especially rocky relationship between the private sector and public sector over intellectual property,” said BVGH CEO Melinda Moree. “I say let’s put aside the ideology and focus on solving the problem.”
September 21, 2011
Priority Review Voucher Value Still Confounds, But Remains An Incentive For Sponsors
The Pink Sheet Daily
While the value of a priority review voucher (PRV) for biotech companies that invest in neglected disease research and development is still unknown, a survey conducted by BVGH shows that drug companies are willing to invest an average of about $100 million to gain a voucher. Sponsors still consider the PRV a strong incentive to pursue the development of drugs for neglected diseases, BVGH's Chief Policy Officer Andrew Robertson said.
September 18, 2011
Let Us Support Fever Test Initiative to Save Our Children From Needless Death
Daily Nation
BVGH CEO Doctors in Kenya and other developing countries need a diagnostic that could differentially diagnose the causes of fever in children under five, so that the countless numbers of children who become can be diagnosed accurately, treated properly and continue to live healthfully, writes Dr. Willis Akhwale, head of the Kenya Department of Disease Prevention and Control in the Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation. Dr. Akhwale points to BVGH's Global Health Innovation Quotient Prize as a key driver for the development of such an important health tool.
September 1, 2011
A Fever Pitch
ONE Blog
BVGH CEO Melinda Moree urges innovators and decision-makers to develop ways to take the guesswork out of diagnosing sick children in developing countries by supporting the development of an innovative point-of-care fever diagnostic to be used in low-resource settings.
August 26, 2011
FDA Targets New Developers Of Neglected Tropical Disease Drugs With Guide
InsideHealthPolicy.com
The FDA released guidance on developing drugs for neglected tropical diseases, targeting new drug sponsors and affirming the ability to conduct clinical trials outside the United States. Don Joseph, COO of BVGH, said that the pipeline of drugs that could be subject to the program has yet to mature since the program was authorized less than five years ago. He said he hopes the guidance contributes to increased use of the program, noting that the document endorses its use alongside other incentive programs.
August 8, 2011
Tropical disease: Novartis shows FDA will honor vouchers; value still unclear
BIOCentury
Critics argue that the Priority Review Voucher, an incentive that grants companies that produce a drug used to treat a neglected tropical disease with a voucher for a faster review process for a future drug, has hit its end. But BVGH COO Don Joseph explains that BVGH is working with the FDA and others to improve the program and engage more biotech and pharmaceutical companies in neglected disease research and development.
July 15, 2011
Can Milestone-based Prizes Spur Development Of Global Health Solutions?
PharmAsia News
A team from BIO Ventures for Global Health (BVGH) is seeking support for a proposed milestone-based prize to stimulate R&D for point-of-care fever diagnostics.
July 12, 2011
A Prize to Save Lives
The Huffington Post
In our troubled economic times, there has been growing interest in prizes as a powerful, cost-effective way to stimulate innovation. Now, it's time to launch a prize to spark biotech innovation to save the lives of people in developing countries who die from infectious diseases, largely because the drugs, vaccines and diagnostic tests that could help them don't yet exist.
July 12, 2011
There is a New Clinical Trial of a Novel Drug for African Sleeping Sickness. Who Cares?
Xconomy
"If diseases could be classified as cruel and unusual, sleeping sickness would be at the top of the list," writes Melinda Moree, BVGH CEO, in an Xconomy opinion piece. In an exciting development for those suffering from and at risk of contracting sleeping sickness, Anacor Pharmaceuticals joined Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative and SCYNEXIS to carry a new compound to treat sleeping sickness into clinical trials.
June 27, 2011
If Biotech Builds…Will Financers Come?
PharmaTechTalk
Biotech companies should look to developing country and emerging markets to bridge the paralyzing “Valley of Death” – the place where the development of new pharmaceuticals often come to a halt because financing and delivery mechanisms are missing – said Regina Rabinovich of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and other high-level speakers at the Partnering for Global Health Forum.
June 27, 2011
USAID: Global Health Efforts Tied to American Security
PharmaTechTalk
The global health sector is committed to supporting the development of new medical technologies to benefit people of the developing world in this time of harsh financial realities, said Dr. Rajiv Shah, administrator of USAID at the Partnering for Global Health Forum – co-sponsored by BIO Ventures for Global Health and the Biotechnology Industry Organization.
June 27, 2011
NIH Director Francis Collins: Broadening Our Vision of Global Health
PharmaTechTalk
Global health is a priority for the National Institutes of Health, its Director Dr. Francis Collins said during the closing keynote address at the Partnering for Global Health Forum, co-organized by BIO Ventures for Global Health and the Biotechnology Industry Organization.
June 17, 2011
Podcast: Melinda Moree, CEO of BIO Ventures for Global Health
BIOtechNow
In preparation for the 2011 Partnering for Global Health Forum, co-hosted by the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) and BIO Ventures for Global Health (BVGH), Melinda Moree, CEO of BVGH, discusses the Forum and the importance of partnering to improving the health of people in developing countries.
June 2, 2011
Global Healthcare on the Ground: BIO and BIO Ventures for Global Health
PharmaTech.com
Although there is a real desire within the biopharmaceutical industry to develop and deliver medicines to people suffering from neglected diseases in resource-poor countries, the financial incentives to spur that development are harder to find, CEO Melinda Moree told PharmaTech.com. Success will require coordination among the industry, global health and government communities to connect the dots between neglected disease product needs and biological pathways and technologies.
March 28, 2011
Gates after Yamada
BioCentury
The new head of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Global Health Program should focus on increasing the foundation’s transparency and improving data mining to better assess the broad scope of its programs, CEO Melinda Moree told BioCentury in this article about Tadataka "Tachi" Yamada's decision to resign from the post.
March 10, 2011
Innovation Wanted: Bringing Biotechs Into Global Health R&D
BIOtechNow
In its Global Health Primer, BVGH links the developing world's need for innovative medical interventions to the targets and technologies that are familiar to the biotech industry.
March 9, 2011
NTDs neglected no more online
Nature's Spoonful of Medicine
BVGH's online Global Health Primer tool is a “one stop shop” for companies and researchers to quickly identify unmet treatment needs in the area of neglected tropical diseases.
November 1, 2010
Pooling Knowledge for Neglected Diseases
Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News
This article highlights one of the Pool for Open Innovation’s first partners, the South Africa-based iThemba Pharmaceuticals, whose mission is to conduct world-class drug discovery and development of new treatments for neglected infectious diseases, in particular Tuberculosis.
October 24, 2010
Global Mandate
BioCentury
In this interview, CEO Melinda Moree discusses what must happen to help ensure the FDA has the resources required to successfully run the review voucher incentive program.
August 31, 2010
Strategy and Priorities, PTV News
Pharma Television
An interview with CEO Melinda Moree on BVGH's recent activities, the FDA's Priority Review Voucher and other strategies to answer the needs of the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries so they can more easily get involved in drug development for neglected diseases.
May 11, 2010
Neglected Diseases, PTV News
Pharma Television
An interview with CEO Melinda Moree on market based incentives designed to engage industry in global health product development.
May 10, 2010
Patent Pool Starts to Attract Interest
SciDev.net
An industry-led 'patent pool', set up last year to target neglected diseases, has finally yielded some fruit. Drug company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) launched the pool last year, saying the company would make patents for some of its drugs and manufacturing processes freely available and with no-cost licences. Many hoped the move would boost research into neglected diseases.
May 7, 2010
Biotech and Global Health
The Lancet
South Africa's newly created Technology Innovation Agency will be the first African governmental agency, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology the first University, to join the Pool for Open Innovation against neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) created by GlaxoSmithKline to aid in the discovery and development of new medicines for the treatment of 16 NTDs in developing countries.
May 7, 2010
Global Health: MIT And South Africa Sign On To Patent Pool For Neglected Diseases
Chemical & Engineering News
After initially stalling, the Pool for Open Innovation against Neglected Tropical Diseases, a collection of intellectual property (IP) and drug discovery know-how, is gaining traction. At the Biotechnology Industry Organization’s convention in Chicago this week, MIT announced becoming the first university to donate IP to the pool, and South Africa’s Technology Innovation Agency (TIA), a government group that assists biotech firms, said it will use the pool to help develop drugs to treat tuberculosis and malaria.
May 6, 2010
MIT and South African Research Agency Dive into Industry Patent Pool
Nature
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and South Africa’s Technology Innovation Agency have joined a patent pool founded by pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline. Participants in the pool agree to share patents that facilitate research into the tropical diseases that plague the developing world, including malaria and leishmaniasis.
May 5, 2010
MIT Joins Effort to Fight Neglected Tropical Diseases
Boston Globe
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is the first academic institution to contribute intellectual property to the Pool for Open Innovation against Neglected Tropical Diseases. The pool is administered by BIO Ventures for Global Health. Previous contributors of intellectual property to the pool include drug and life sciences companies such as GlaxoSmithKline and Cambridge-based Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc.
May 5, 2010
South Africa Taps Patent Pool for Neglected Diseases
Reuters
South Africa will use a new "patent pool" to work on new drugs for tuberculosis and malaria, making it the first government to take advantage of the industry-led idea. The pool aims to speed development of drugs for neglected tropical diseases by freely sharing patented information owned by drug companies and academic institutions.
March 17, 2010
Open source: the way forward in the search for new treatments for the infectious diseases of poverty?
TropIKA.net
BIO Ventures for Global Health CEO Melinda Moree offers her opinion of open innovation in this TropIKA.net article, which profiles a new collaboration, called the Open Source Drug Discovery Foundation (OSDD). The partnership plans to use voluntary and open efforts to accelerate the development of affordable drugs for diseases including malaria, leishmaniasis and – first – tuberculosis.
March 1, 2010
Battle Joined: Knowledge Pool Created to Fight Neglected Diseases
Biotech-now.org
This BIOtechNOW blog entry highlights a partnership formed by GlaxoSmithKline and Alnylam Pharmaceuticals to share intellectual property (IP) and industrial know-how to develop new therapies to treat the world’s most neglected tropical diseases. The IP Pool, originally formed in February 2009, will be managed by BIO Ventures for Global Health.
February 23, 2010
Intellectual Property Pool: Podcast with BVGH, Alnylam and GlaxoSmithKline
Biotech-now.org
BVGH CEO Melinda Moree discusses the Intellectual Property (IP) Pool to aid in the development of new treatments for neglected tropical diseases with Alnylam Pharmaceuticals CEO John Maraganore and Nick Cammack, Vice President and head of GlaxoSmithKline’s Tres Cantos Medicines Development Campus. BIO Ventures for Global Health has been selected to administer the IP Pool.
February 4, 2010
Questions as Mileposts of Progress
The Huffington Post
Dr. Orin Levine, Executive Director of the International Vaccine Access Center at Johns Hopkins University, recently discussed with BVGH CEO Melinda Moree how the progress of product-development partnerships should be measured.
January 30, 2010
Gates pledges $10 billion to childhood vaccines
The Seattle Times
The Microsoft co-founder and his wife re-upped for the battle in a big way. The $10 billion, 10-year commitment to childhood vaccines they announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, ranks as the biggest philanthropic pledge ever to a single cause.
January 27, 2010
Learning to Share
Nature
By opening up its database of potential malaria drugs, GlaxoSmithKline has blazed a path that other pharmaceutical companies should follow.
January 22, 2010
BIO supports joint research efforts for neglected diseases
ThomasNet News
BIO applauds joint efforts of BIO members GlaxoSmithKline and Alnylam Pharmaceuticals to encourage research to accelerate medical therapies for neglected diseases, and selection of BIO Ventures for Global Health as administrator of Intellectual Property Pool. According to BIO President and CEO, Jim Greenwood, BIO strongly endorses IP Pool as a promising tool to foster more collaboration between industry, non-profit organizations, and researchers in developing new therapies.
January 11, 2010
New at the Top: Melinda Moree, Bio Ventures for Global Health
The Washington Post
BVGH CEO Melinda Moree was featured in an interview in The Washington Post, where she discusses her new role at BIO Ventures for Global Health and the need for new drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics for the developing world.
May 1, 2009
Creative Business Solutions to Global Health Issues
Weill Cornell Medical College
Dr. Christopher Earl, BVGH President & CEO, was featured as a panelist at the Cornell Business & Medicine Symposium held in New York on April 30, 2009. The panel addressed why current markets have failed to inspire innovative new medicines for infectious diseases of poverty, and how changing reimbursement practices for physicians might alter the landscape.
April, 2008
Doing Better at Doing Good
Nature Biotechnology
Global health initiatives should place greater emphasis on mechanisms for encouraging small and medium-sized biotech enterprises to participate in the fight against neglected diseases.
March 13, 2008
Voucher Senate Sponsor Seeks New Incentive for Drugmakers
BioWorld Today
The likeability of the U.S. by foreign nations could increase if Americans broadened their efforts in global health initiatives, such as developing drugs to tackle diseases that affect poor populations, said Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.).
March 12, 2008
Priority Review Vouchers the Next 'Golden Ticket'?
BioWorld Today
Political scientists looking for a model to streamline the legislative process might ponder the efforts of a group of Duke University professors.
June 1, 2007
TB Gets Deadlier and Closer
Atlanta Journal Constitution
BVGH's Chris Earl and Joelle Tanguy (Global Business Coalition) join forces on this op-ed about the looming global threat posed by drug-resistant TB.
February 13, 2007
Panel Deliberates Ideas to Fund Global Health Products
BioWorld
BVGH's VP of Business Development, Julie Klim, leads a panel on innovative financing mechanisms for global health products like an investment fund.
February 12, 2007
Creating a $1.5B Market
BioCentury
BVGH's Wendy Taylor discusses the pilot AMC program for pneumococcal vaccines.
February 9, 2007
Vaccinating the World
Business Week
BVGH Founder, Wendy Taylor, discusses the need for market incentives for vaccine development and the importance of the AMC pilot launch.
January 11, 2007
Increased Innovation Needed in the Fight Against Epidemics
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
BVGH CEO, Chris Earl and Board member Melinda Moree, write an Op-ed about the need for increased innovation in response to the White House Summit on Malaria.
January, 2007
Innovation and Reduced Risk Remain Keys to 2007 Funding
BioExecutive International
BVGH CEO, Chris Earl, makes the case for investment in neglected dieseases like TB.
December 29, 2006
NDT Funding Strategies Seek to Bring Bench Progress to Bedside
BioWorld Today
BVGH CEO, Chris Earl, discusses neglected tropical disease funding opportunities.
November 1, 2006
Getting Your Gates
The Scientist
BVGH CEO, Chris Earl, talks about the entrance of non-profits into drug development work.
September 19, 2006
Bets on Biotech
U.S. News & World Report
BVGH CEO, Chris Earl, is quoted in this latest article on biomedical philanthropy.
July 3, 2006
A Market Remedy That Can Bring Vaccines to the Poor
Financial Times
Together with Harvey Bale, Director-General of the International Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA), BVGH CEO, Christopher D. Earl, encourages the G8 to use the St. Petersburg summit to launch a pilot AMC.
June 22, 2005
$5.4M Pledged To Spur Drugs For Diseases That Afflict Poor
USA Today
BVGH's newest grant - a $5.4 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation - is announced.
June 21, 2005
Funds Steer Biotech Drugs to Poor
The Wall Street Journal
BVGH's newest grant - a $5.4 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation - is announced.
March 28, 2005
Third World Solutions
BioCentury
Karen Bernstein looks at the changing landscape of global health product development opportunities and the emerging role biotech companies are playing in this field. The article highlights the work that BVGH is doing to uncover and build market opportunities for products that address neglected diseases.
March 18, 2005
BIO Ventures Pushes Biotech Involvement in Global Issues
BioWorld Today
BVGH's mission and activities are highlighted, as the organization moves into its first full year of operations.
September, 2004
Developing Markets
Nature Biotechnology
Wendy Taylor, Executive Director of BVGH, responds to an August editorial in the September Letters to the Editor section.
August, 2004
Boldness, but with realism
Nature Biotechnology
This editorial applauds BVGH for "daring to conceive that biotech and the developing world can be allies against the scourge of disease" and points out the challenges presented by inadequate distribution systems in resource-poor settings.
June 7, 2004
BIO’s Global Health Venture
BioCentury
The Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), together with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, is set to announce the creation of BIO Ventures for Global Health (BVGH).
June 6, 2004
Medical Aid on Way for Poorer Nations
The Washington Post
The Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), together with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, is set to announce the creation of BIO Ventures for Global Health (BVGH).
May 28, 2004
Bringing Biotechnology to Developing Countries
BIO News
The Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), together with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, is set to announce the creation of BIO Ventures for Global Health (BVGH).