Overview
Efforts to address medical catastrophes such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and malnutrition have made progress, albeit incomplete, while further efforts are sorely needed to improve innovation and access for patients with drug-resistant TB; neglected tropical diseases with high mortality rates, such as Chagas disease; and vaccines for preventable diseases like measles, pneumonia, rotavirus, and others. Various R&D initiatives, including product development partnerships, have begun to fill previously abandoned or non-existent drug development pipelines, with a limited number of new funding opportunities provided by a group of public and philanthropic donors.
While progress has been made, where do we stand today? Are urgent R&D needs indeed being met? How can we accelerate the delivery of medical innovations to neglected patients?
Lives in the Balance: Stimulating and Delivering Medical Innovation for Neglected Patients and Populations aimed to bring together key actors in global public health to reflect on progress and shortcomings, consider the evidence and report on analyses of recent data, and chart out ways to effectively tackle current challenges by drawing on lessons from the past decade.
A broad range of scientists and medical professionals from countries hard hit by neglected diseases; policy-makers; academics; non-profit R&D initiatives; the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors; donors; civil society organizations; and medical journalists and editors came together to review the current scientific and policy landscapes and pinpointed the remaining gaps as well as new opportunities for progress in the delivery of medical innovation to neglected patients.
