Category: Policy Blog

Despite recent progress in global health, poor populations in low- and middle-income countries continue to suffer and die disproportionately from poverty related and neglected diseases (PRNDs). For many of these diseases, new medicines, vaccines, and diagnostic tests are urgently needed. However, the lack of market incentives is a major barrier to research and development (R&D) for such health technologies. Governments and philanthropic foundations have helped to address this gap by funding product development for PRNDs. In a new study that we published yesterday, we focused on one important government funder of such product development: the United States government. Our study, called “Strengthening the United States Government’s Role in Product Development for Global Health,” conducted in collaboration with other colleagues in the Duke Global Health Institute and at the Duke Margolis…

Today we are excited to launch the Center for Policy Impact in Global Health, based in the Duke Global Health Institute, a new kind of policy lab that will apply design thinking principles to address critical challenges in financing and delivering global health.So what are these challenges, and what do we mean by design thinking principles? The financing and delivery challenges that the Center will address are related to three critical gaps: A gap in donor financing of crucial global public goods for health and other “global functions.” Donor financing for health has flat-lined in recent years and too little of it has been directed at global public goods for health—such as developing new medicines for neglected diseases of poverty—and at other “global functions,” such as preparing for pandemics. A…