To achieve the ambitious goal of health and well-being for all, the world needs better and more accessible medicines and health technologies. However, incentivizing R&D for new tools to combat diseases primarily impacting the world’s poorest and ensuring these tools can be made available at affordable prices remains a persistent challenge for the global community.
How best to tackle this challenge and increase the development of and access to affordable, practical technologies for diseases impacting low- and middle-income nations is a hotly debated issue among global health advocates and economists. The World Health Organization is expected to revisit these issues at the 2016 World Health Assembly as member states consider proposals which could include the introduction of new mechanisms for funding R&D and approaches to technology transfer, patents, and licensing.
GHTC and COHRED discussed in a webinar approaches to achieving access to new products, and how those approaches can impact the R&D process. The discussion included multiple perspectives on the topic and a Q&A with the panelists..