Overview

DNDi works with R&D partners built on South-South and North-South collaborations. While using and supporting existing capacity in countries where the diseases are endemic, DNDi helps to build additional capacity in a sustainable manner through technology transfer in the field of drug research and development for neglected diseases.

DNDi will continue to work with partners in disease-endemic countries and ensure their involvement in the R&D process through technology transfer and through a global network of collaborations. This includes:

•  access to chemical diversity, 
• establishment of discovery platforms,
• pharmaceutical and clinical development,
• working closely with control programmes through, for example, the Leishmaniasis East Africa Platform (LEAP) and HAT platforms in Africa, Founding Partners, and other existing networks in disease endemic countries.

DNDi balances the objective to stimulate R&D activity in the developing countries with the acute need to develop new medicines.
Institutional capacity and cost structures will serve as criteria for partner selection as will the partner’s ability to conduct studies that facilitate registration in endemic countries.

In addition, physical upgrading of facilities directly related to clinical trials is taking place within disease-endemic regions. DNDi has no ownership over these facilities. 

Such capacity building may include the building and renovation of hospital wards, clinics, and health posts; renovation and re-equipping of clinical laboratories; and training of health service personnel with particular emphasis on building expertise in clinical trial methodology, Good Clinical Practice and Ethics, patient treatment and evaluation, accurate diagnosis and follow-up by parasitology, and safety.