Delivered by Rachel M. Cohen, Senior Advisor, DNDi

The Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) is an international not-for-profit research and development organization, and today we strongly urge UN Member States to adopt the Political Declaration that you have negotiated over the past several months. But even without it, governments can start now to implement key priorities related to accelerating innovation for medical countermeasures and ensuring equitable access to resulting therapeutics, diagnostics, and vaccines—through national action as well as regional and cross-regional coalitions and alliances. I will highlight three:

First, biomedical R&D must be treated as a core preparedness function. As we are seeing with the Ebola Bundibugyo emergency and other outbreaks, when treatments, vaccines, or rapid tests do not exist, starting R&D after an outbreak is detected leaves communities, caregivers, and clinicians empty-handed. To sprint towards late-stage clinical development and equitable access during an emergency, we must run the research marathon before emergencies hit. We are therefore pleased with the Political Declaration’s emphasis on R&D, including the goal of developing medical countermeasures within 100 days of identifying an outbreak.

Second, the R&D gap is particularly acute for therapeutics and must be addressed. Although this neglected aspect of pandemic preparedness is not highlighted in the Political Declaration, DNDi and our partners are seeing growing recognition of the need. We urge Member States to support and finance a global Therapeutics Development Coalition, to be launched in 2027, which will aim to accelerate antiviral drug discovery for WHO priority viral families—with equitable access built in from the start.

And finally, public R&D funding must deliver public benefits. Article 9.5 of the Pandemic Agreement provides a critical framework – and obligation – for ensuring that publicly funded R&D translates into accessible health tools. We welcome the Political Declaration’s recognition that public financing should be leveraged to promote equitable access. Member States can and should begin implementing Article 9.5 now, putting appropriate access conditions on public R&D funding as a tangible outcome of years of negotiations.

These commitments can help ensure that investments in pandemic R&D translate into timely and equitable access to lifesaving tools for all. Thank you.