The rollout of two new vaccines for malaria has been welcomed as a win for low—and middle-income countries, which have not always been at the front of the line to enjoy the benefits of new medical technologies. But will companies continue to invest in such life-saving innovations for the developing world?
Gavin Yamey, M.D., director of the Duke Center for Policy Impact in Global Health, says there are good reasons to think they will. In this Quick Take video, he describes three main arguments for manufacturers to continue ramping up their investments in global health research and development.
“We know that new health technologies work,” says Yamey, the Hymowitz Family Professor of Global Health at the Duke Global Health Institute. “If you look at the fall in child mortality from 1970 to 2000, about 80 percent of that decline is from the development and diffusion of new health technologies. That is how we're really going to move the needle on saving lives."
Yamey notes that returns on investments in medical innovations historically have been strong, and that advances such as artificial intelligence will help drive down costs of developing new technologies.
But hurdles remain for governments and manufacturers to launch new products in low- and middle-income countries. In a recent article for Brookings, Yamey and co-authors, including DGHI's Osondu Ogbuoji, note that the costs of discovery and clinical trials, as well as the extended timelines often required for regulatory approvals, can hamper research and development. Such obstacles have slowed access to mpox vaccines and treatments in sub-Saharan Africa, Yamey wrote in a commentary for Time this month.
In the Brookings article, Yamey and co-authors describe results of two research studies, which suggest that changes to the R&D ecosystem could help accelerate the development of new innovation, particularly for neglected tropical diseases such as dengue, leprosy and scabies.
“In theory at least, the next 20 years could be even better than the last 20 years for launching breakthrough global health technologies,” they write.
