2020 will be forever remembered for the tragic loss and devastating disruption the COVID-19 pandemic brought to bear on families and communities around the world. While the scientific response to COVID-19 is enabling major advances and the development of new health technologies at unprecedented speed, millions of people remain without access to the vaccines, diagnostics, and treatments needed to save lives and guard against new waves of infection.

From the start of the pandemic, DNDi teams have been mobilizing our networks and leveraging our experience in needs-driven, non-profit research and development (R&D) to accelerate research and equitable access to health tools in low-resource settings.

In April 2020, we co-founded the COVID-19 Clinical Research Coalition, which has brought together more than 800 researchers, physicians, funders, and policymakers from 88 countries to advance research that answers to the specific needs of people and health systems in low- and middleincome countries (LMICs). And in November, we launched ANTICOV, an adaptive platform trial in 13 African countries testing multiple early treatment options for mild-to-moderate COVID-19. Conducted with a consortium of 25 organizations from Africa and around the world, we aim to identify one or two safe, effective, and affordable treatments that can limit progression to severe disease and prevent fragile health systems from being overwhelmed by surges in hospitalization.

Our drug discovery teams are also contributing to the response, working with partners to identify potential treatment candidates from existing antivirals while also initiating longer-term efforts to discover all-new antiviral drug candidates for the treatment of SARS-CoV-2, future generations of coronavirus, and potentially other pandemic-prone viruses. And from the earliest days of the pandemic, we have spoken out – advocating for R&D to be driven by the public interest and for COVID-19 health tools to be developed and delivered as public goods, with equitable access for all.

2020 is also a year that we will look back on with pride for the tremendous momentum our teams and partners maintained across more than 40 R&D projects, standing firm in our commitment to neglected patients against unforeseen challenges and difficult odds.

In late 2020, our industrial partner Pharmaniaga submitted ravidasvir for the treatment of hepatitis C for regulatory approval in Malaysia, where we have worked with partners since 2016 to conduct clinical trials and pilot ‘test-and-treat’ strategies that have connected thousands of people to life-saving treatment. Granted conditional approval in June 2021, the all-new chemical entity will now be part of an affordable, safe, and highly effective all-oral cure for hepatitis C. Ravidasvir is the ninth treatment delivered by DNDi since our founding and stands out as the first drug for hepatitis C to be developed through South-South collaboration.

Our teams and partners in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Guinea brought us one step closer to reaching our long-term objective for people affected by sleeping sickness, completing post-treatment follow-up for all participants in our pivotal Phase II/III clinical trial of acoziborole. The single-dose oral drug for both stages of the disease holds tremendous promise as a tool to enable the sustainable elimination of sleeping sickness and reach patients in even the most remote communities.

As we pushed forward on our R&D and access agenda and lent our capacities in the response to COVID-19, so too did we cement our commitments to driving medical innovation and access for neglected patients in the years to come, launching our new Strategic Plan. It charts our course to 2028, by which time we aim to deliver an additional 15 to 18 new treatments, for a total of 25 treatments in our first 25 years. In delivering on our mission, we will double down on neglect with a proactive agenda for maternal and child health, gender-responsive R&D, and climatesensitive and pandemic-prone diseases, while leveraging new technologies to accelerate R&D and access.

Please join us as we continue to use the power of our partnerships to deliver medicines for lifethreatening
diseases that disproportionately impact poor and marginalized people, strengthen innovation ecosystems that put people’s needs first, and speak out for the policies and political will needed to leave no one behind.

We invite you to learn more about our ambitions and vision for the road ahead – and we thank the many friends, partners, and supporters who have propelled our progress so far.