16-Dec-2011
Grand Challenges Canada and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation invest almost $32 million in the discovery and development of new and improved diagnostics at point-of-care
Grand Challenges Canada and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have teamed up on an unprecedented global effort to discover and develop affordable, easy-to-use tools to help developing country health workers rapidly diagnose diseases in rural communities. The expected result: more timely and appropriate treatment of illnesses in poor countries, potentially saving countless lives.
“Imagine a hand-held, battery-powered device that can take a drop of blood and, within minutes, tell a healthcare worker in a remote village whether a feverish child has malaria, dengue or a bacterial infection,” says Peter A. Singer, MD, Chief Executive Officer of Grand Challenges Canada. “More rapid diagnosis of malaria alone could prevent 100,000 deaths a year. We believe this and other life-saving opportunities are within our reach.”
The five research areas of this Grand Challenge break the diagnostic problem down into its component parts: Draw blood (or other biological sample) and prep it for analysis, analyze the sample to identify disease, develop the technologies to obtain and transmit data and receive back results, and ensure the device will work in the field where there is often no electricity or refrigeration.
“The project is analogous to software developers creating new apps for smart phones and tablet computers,” says Rebecca Lackman, PhD, Grand Challenges Canada Program Officer for Diagnostics. “Researchers have accepted the challenge to create novel sampling and testing systems that can be plugged into a standardized analyzer that can test for malaria, tuberculosis, HIV and a variety of tropical diseases. The ‘Integrated Innovation’ approach means they will also investigate the social and business innovations needed for successful product delivery and use.”
“This initiative is unique in many respects: it will allow health workers to identify multiple diseases and pathogens from one patient specimen; plug-and-play platforms will allow best-in-class components to be developed and integrated in a diagnostic device; and we are creating a common application platform; thereby, reducing both commercialization costs and regulatory issues, making it more attractive for industry to invest in diagnostics for global health.”
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]]>13 Jul 11
Tanzanian researchers are awarded a two-year grant to further develop a device that uses human foot odor to lure disease-spreading mosquitos into a trap. The odor (both natural and synthetic) creates a bait that attracts four times more mosquitoes than a live human being.
Such outdoor devices could one day complement indoor spraying programs and bed nets in reducing malaria and perhaps other mosquito-bourne diseases like elephantiasis and leishmaniasis.
The grant, from Grand Challenges Canada and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is detailed in the news release below.
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]]>12 December 2010
Africans strengthen ability to meet health needs in sub-Sahara with homegrown science solutions, but many products stagnate in labs for want of commercialization know-how, support
Global health experts today published a landmark collection of papers that together provide a unique microscope on the experience of countries, companies and organizations in sub-Saharan Africa addressing neglected health problems with homegrown drugs, vaccines, diagnostics and other creative scientific and business solutions.
The first-of-its kind study chronicles the triumphs and troubles of entrepreneurs, institutes and firms in Africa creating innovative, affordable technologies that bring hope to many sufferers of local diseases. While some have yet to succeed, several organizations cleared major hurdles to finance and create products, some of which may expand into global markets one day.
It is the first research offering a broad range of evidence and concrete examples of African innovation to address local health concerns. The papers draw on the experiences of authorities, researchers and entrepreneurs in Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda. In addition to efforts involving health products, the experiences of health venture capital funds in African and other developed countries are profiled.
The papers were produced by Canada’s McLaughlin-Rotman Center for Global Health (MRC), at the University Health Network and University of Toronto, and published as a special supplement in the UK-based open-access journal publisher BioMed Central Dec. 12 (with full public access atwww.biomedcentral.com/bmcinthealthhumrights/10?issue=S1). One of the papers was published earlier in the journal Science.
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The lure of greater profits elsewhere in the world may divert bio-pharmaceutical firms in developing countries from the creation and distribution of affordable drugs, vaccines and diagnostics for illnesses of local concern, undermining the health prospects of millions of poor people, experts warn.
And they call for a series of measures to bolster international support for continuing the success of firms finding homegrown solutions to immediate health concerns in developing countries.
In a commentary published by the journal Nature Biotechnology, researchers Rahim Rezaie and Peter A. Singer at Canada’s McLaughlin Rotman Centre for Global Health say biotech companies in China, India, South Africa and Brazil are making important, innovative contributions to address health problems in the south.
Biotech firms in emerging economies are putting into the hands of countless people affordable products to prevent, diagnose and remedy illnesses of local concern.
Most famously, perhaps, a hepatitis B vaccine developed by Shantha Biotechnics of Hyderabad, India, helped cause a domestic price reduction from about $15 for a comparable imported product to roughly $0.25 today. Experts credit Shantha’s innovative, efficient manufacturing process and well as subsequent local competition.
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]]>10 May 2010
‘South-South’ biotech collaborations boost health, economies: Study
The availability of more affordable drugs, vaccines and diagnostics that would help countless people worldwide is the foremost benefit expected from a growing number of collaborations between biotech firms in developing countries, according to a study to be published Mon. May 10 in the UK journal Nature Biotechnology.
Researchers from five developing countries, together with colleagues at Canada’s McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health, interviewed over 300 experts in 13 developing countries to produce the first-ever large scale study of “south-south” collaboration in health-related biotechnology.
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]]>Apr 20, 2010
55th anniversary of first polio vaccine
Failure to pursue eradication of polio worldwide given the capacity and opportunity to do so is a violation of ethical principles, foremost among them a “duty to rescue” those in distress, according to ethicists writing in this week’s edition of the Lancet.
Claudia Emerson, PhD, Program Leader in Ethics, and Peter A. Singer, MD, Director of the Canadian-based McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health (MRC) at the University Health Network and University of Toronto, present a series of compelling arguments that completing polio eradication is an ethical imperative.
They say the polio eradication agenda in recent years has largely centered on questions of economic and technical feasibility and has come under fire from opponents who strongly support an ‘effective control’ strategy. However, it is estimated that this alternative to eradication would result in 4 million children contracting polio in the next 20 years.
The authors introduce a moral justification for eradication to the debate, asking: “How can we ethically justify this course of action when the opportunity and means to rescue are available?”
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]]>University Health Network / University of Toronto
8-Jan-2010
Chinese researchers have become the world’s fifth most prolific contributors to peer-reviewed scientific literature on clock-reversing regenerative medicine even as a skeptical international research community condemns the practice of Chinese clinics administering unproven stem cell therapies to domestic and foreign patients.
According to a study by the Canadian-based McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health (MRC), published today by the UK journal Regenerative Medicine, China’s government is pouring dollars generously into regenerative medicine (RM) research and aggressively recruiting high-calibre scientists trained abroad in pursuit of its ambition to become a world leader in the field.
And its strategy is working: Chinese contributions to scientific journals on RM topics leapt from 37 in year 2000 to 1,116 in 2008, exceeded only by the contributions of experts in the USA, Germany, Japan and the UK.
The accomplishment is all the more astonishing given that China’s international credibility has been and still is severely hindered by global concerns surrounding Chinese clinics, where unproven therapies continue to be administered to thousands of patients.
New rules to govern such treatments were recently instituted but need to be strictly enforced in order to repair China’s global reputation, according to MRC authors Dominique S. McMahon, Halla Thorsteinsdóttir, Peter A. Singer and Abdallah S. Daar.
They drew their conclusions after having gained unprecedented access to almost 50 Chinese researchers, policy makers, clinicians, company executives and regulators for interviews. The research was made possible by funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
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]]>Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases
Agencies managing 80 percent of global public health research funding set first priorities for common, concerted efforts on heart and lung diseases, other ‘chronic non-communicable diseases’
An alliance of institutions collectively managing an estimated 80 percent of all public health research funding worldwide today announced their first targets for concerted action in the fight against “chronic non-communicable diseases” (CNCDs).
Lowering hypertension (high blood pressure), and reducing tobacco use and the indoor pollution caused by crude cooking stoves in developing countries — which together contribute to about 1 in 5 deaths each year — were chosen as initial priorities for the unprecedented coordinated research program under the recently-formed Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases.
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http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AlbF9zth54L8dDV6ZDF6VDltVmsxcUVPSFliaEphV0E&hl=en
3 Nov 2009
Experts propose ‘Global Health Accellerator’ to help new drugs, diagnostics, vaccines reach distant markets
Research firms in developing countries have a medicine cabinet full of affordable and innovative drugs, diagnostics and vaccines on shelves or in development to address “neglected tropical diseases” but need help to get such products to more potential users.
Canadian research, published today by the journal Health Affairs (“A Business Plan To Help The ‘Global South’ In Its Fight Against Neglected Diseases”), says roughly 1 billion people worldwide are killed or sickened by “neglected tropical diseases” (NTDs). More than 30 such diseases, caused by worms, protozoa, bacteria, fungi or viruses, afflict the poorest people in the poorest countries, and collectively cause a health burden comparable to malaria, tuberculosis or AIDS (known as the “Big 3” tropical diseases).
The McLaughlin Rotman Centre for Global Health study notes earlier research that, of 1,556 new drugs approved between 1975-2004, only 21 (1.3%) targeted NTDs. That represents “a public health failure,” authors say, given that NTDs affect roughly 15% of humanity.
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9 Sep 2009
Lower manufacturing, clinical trial, R&D costs of developing country partners equal major opportunities to advance global health, market position
Collaboration with health biotech companies in developing countries represents a major opportunity for companies in developed countries to strengthen their market reach and innovation potential, acording to the results of a new study.
The study by the McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health (MRC), based at the University Health Network and the University of Toronto, found that one in four Canadian health biotech firms are involved in some form of partnership initiative in developing countries.
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