Pharma’s shift away from infectious disease research could spell disaster for the world’s poorest people

9 Oct 2025

By Laurent Fraisse, Research & Development Director, DNDi

In 2023, Johnson & Johnson announced it had stopped research and development on therapeutics for many infectious diseases, including hepatitis and tuberculosis. Less visibly, AbbVie shuttered last year its pro bono technical R&D support on infectious diseases such as malaria and Chagas’ disease.

These are not isolated cases. An increasing number of large pharmaceutical companies from the Global North are leaving the field of R&D for infectious disease therapeutics to move to more lucrative areas, particularly cancer, obesity, diabetes, auto-immune, and rare (but highly profitable) diseases. This trend is not new — it has been consistent over the past two decades — but it is accelerating.

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