Some 33 Members of the European Parliament released an open letter Friday urging top leadership in the European Commission (EC) to prohibit exclusive licensing for COVID-19 products developed with European Union (EU) grants, and demanding transparency in the research and development pipeline to ensure affordability commitments are met.  In a separate letter signed by 37 […] Continue reading ->
US Food & Drug Administration authorization of a rapid COVID-19 test on the GeneXpert platform, one of the most widely-used TB diagnostic tools in the world, could be the first crack in the doorway to wider testing capacity in low- and middle-income countries, leading TB advocates told Health Policy Watch.  There are some 23,000 GeneXpert […] Continue reading ->
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Wellcome Trust, and Mastercard on Tuesday announced a US $125 million commitment of seed funding to a new COVID-19 Treatment Accelerator – whose aim as its name implies, will be to speed up the development of urgently needed drugs to treat people infected with COVID-19. Just hours later, the […] Continue reading ->
WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged countries to redouble their efforts on COVID-19 containment, saying that China’s stunning success shows that goal still may be attainable – even as 16,470 new cases of the fatal virus mushroomed elsewhere across the globe in the past 24 hours. “This not a drill. This is not […] Continue reading ->
[Medicines for Malaria Venture] EDCTP grants the PAMAfrica research consortium €21.9 million over a 5 year period; MMV, Novartis and other partners will provide an additional €22 million. The PAMAfrica consortium brings together a global medicines company, a not-for-profit product development partnership and leading academic institutions in Africa and Europe. PAMAfrica aims to develop new […] Continue reading ->
As Iran faces one of the most serious surges in COVID-19 cases around the world, WHO’s Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, welcomed US President Donald Trump’s olive branch toward its bitter enemy, who on Monday told the Conservative Political Action Congress  “if we can help the Iranians with this problem we are certainly willing […] Continue reading ->
While health leaders battle a global outbreak of a dangerous new virus, a consortium of partners is entering the fight against one of humankind’s oldest infectious diseases, tuberculosis. A group of philanthropic, non-profit, and private sector organizations on Thursday launched a collaboration to accelerate development for a “pan-TB” treatment regimen to treat drug-sensitive and drug-resistant […] Continue reading ->