KNOWLEDGE PORTAL
on innovation and access to medicines

“TDR, the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases, is a global programme of scientific collaboration that helps facilitate, support and influence efforts to combat diseases of poverty. It is co-sponsored by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO)” (TDR, n.d.).

This organization was included for its participation in non profit R&D for Neglected Diseases (Vieira M, Kimmitt R and Moon S. F1000Research 2021, 10:190).

“ANDI was launched in Abuja, Nigeria in 2008 and is a response to global and regional calls and declarations to support health and health research capacity in Africa and other developing regions of the world through activities that include enhancing research and development collaboration among African institutions and countries, as well as by promoting sustainable access to health products. ANDI’s primary objective is to promote and support health product research and development led by African institutions for diseases of high prevalence in the continent. The expected outcome is the discovery, development and delivery of affordable new health tools including those based on traditional medicine, as well as the development of capacity and establishment of centres of research excellence” (University of Queensland, 2016).

“The Global AMR Innovation Fund (GAMRIF) supports early-stage innovative research in underfunded areas of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) research and development for the benefit of people in low and middle income countries (LMICs). GAMRIF works with research organisations, governments and industry around the world to establish international research partnerships and support research competitions that fund innovation and development of new technologies to tackle AMR; leverage investment from other partners and donors to support sustainable financing for AMR; establish global research partnerships using a ‘One Health’ approach; and fund projects that will develop solutions specifically for LMICs” (Gov.uk, n.d.).

“The University of Oxford’s Jenner Institute and Oxford Vaccine Group have been at the forefront of scientific endeavour to develop vaccines for diseases of major global importance for more than 30 years. Oxford's coronavirus vaccine has been approved for use in a number of countries, marking an important milestone in the fight against COVID-19” (University of Oxford, n.d.).

Through University of Oxford’s partnership with AstraZeneca, they have made over 3 billion doses available in 183 countries (University of Oxford, 2022).

"The Synaptic Leap website was launched in 2006 with an aim ‘‘to provide a network of online research communities that connect and enable open source biomedical research’’ [46]. It was launched with four pilot disease research areas: malaria, schistosomiasis, toxoplasma and tuberculosis. Each area had a project leader with the responsibility
of gathering and motivating international researchers to contribute to the Synaptic Leap community by sharing results, giving
feedback and possibly undertaking new research tasks. Since launch, the malaria, toxoplasma and tuberculosis communities
have been relatively silent. However, the schistosomiasis community has consistently utilized the website to share findings, discuss research results and identify new, necessary research tasks" (Årdal and Røttingen, 2012)

“TBVI's mission is: to support, integrate, translate and prioritise R&D efforts to discover and develop new tuberculosis vaccines that are accessible and affordable for all…A non-profit foundation, TBVI creates an enabling environment for TB vaccine research and innovation (R&I) and product development…TBVI adds value through providing services of technical advice for product development; project identification, development and management; and resource mobilisation. TBVI works through the Global TB Vaccine Partnership (GTBVP) with global stakeholders to strengthen Global and European cooperation and coordination and identify and address gaps to move the field forward” (TBVI, n.d.).

“Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development (TCH-CVD) at Baylor College of Medicine is a product development partnership that has been developing vaccines to prevent neglected and emerging infections for the past 20 years. TCHCVD is the anchor for translational medicine in the Texas Medical Center” (Baylor College of Medicine, n.d.).

TCHCVD began developing coronavirus vaccines in 2011, and most recently, developed a low-cost, patent-free COVID-19 vaccine that has received emergency use authorization in India. The vaccine is considered by its developers to be "The World's COVID-19 Vaccine".

“The Critical Path to TB Drug Regimens (CPTR) initiative, co-founded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Critical Path Institute, and the TB Alliance, is a multi-sectoral effort to overcome the challenges associated with TB drug development and to dramatically accelerate the development of new and impactful TB drug regimens. This innovative partnership brings together the world’s leading pharmaceutical and other drug developers, global regulatory agencies, and civil society organizations to support advances in regulatory science, the development of infrastructure, and other progress needed to facilitate the development and availability of new TB drug treatments” (TB Alliance, n.d.).

GDAC “brings together the Partnership for Dengue Control (PDC), the International Vaccine Institute (IVI), the International Vaccine Access Center (IVAC) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the Duke-NUS Medical School in the fight against Aedes-transmitted diseases” (GDAC, n.d.). Working closely with the WHO, GDAC “advises and provides consultation to national and local health agencies in the development and implementation of innovative, targeted and synergistic approaches to prevent and control Aedes-transmitted diseases including dengue, Zika, chikungunya and yellow fever”, and their goals include “accelerating innovations in vaccines, therapeutics, vector control, disease surveillance and diagnostics; promoting evidence-based prevention and control strategies nationally and internationally; strengthening advocacy, capacity building and networking” (ibid).

This organization was included for its participation in non profit R&D for Neglected Diseases (Vieira M, Kimmitt R and Moon S. F1000Research 2021, 10:190).

“Cambia is an independent non-profit social enterprise creating new technologies, tools and paradigms to promote change and enable innovation…Our mission is to democratize innovation: to create a more equitable and inclusive capability to solve problems using science and technology” (Cambia, n.d.).

“The Lens, the flagship project of the social enterprise Cambia, seeks to source, merge and link diverse open knowledge sets, including scholarly works and patents, to inform discovery, analysis, decision making and partnering on a human-centered user experience built on an open web platform, Lens.org, with toolkits designed to optimize institutional effectiveness in problem solving” (Lens, n.d.).

“Trek Therapeutics is a for-profit company, organized as a public benefit corporation. Its mission is to develop medicines to treat infectious diseases and commercialize them for global populations. The company’s founders have collectively participated in developing seven approved antiviral drugs. Our objective is to profitably develop safe, novel medicines for infectious diseases at affordable and accessible prices” (Trek Therapeutics, n.d.).

This organization was included for its participation in non profit R&D for Neglected Diseases (Vieira M, Kimmitt R and Moon S.  F1000Research 2021, 10:190)